What's Best Next

  • Newsletter
  • Our Mission
  • Free Resource
  • Contact
  • Coaching
    • Center for Coaching
    • 2-HOUR DARE
    • Our Coaches
  • Speaking
  • Store
    • Online Store
    • Cart
    • My Account
  • Resources
    • Productivity
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Web Strategy
    • Book Extras
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Our Core Values
    • Our Approach to Productivity
    • Our Staff
    • Contact
You are here: Home / 2014 / Archives for December 2014

Archives for December 2014

Food for the Hungry's Gift Catalog

December 2, 2014 by Matt Perman

So today is Giving Tuesday, a much more important day than Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

One of the most fun and innovative ways to give is through a gift catalog.

This is what Food for the Hungry has been doing for a few years now, and it’s pretty cool. They have a catalog of items, except the items are not consumer goods that you buy for yourself or those on your Christmas lists. Rather, the catalog consists of items that you buy for the poor and which they can use to meet their needs and sustain themselves.

You can buy seed, cows, goats, wells, water purification facilities, and much more — all for the poor. This is pretty cool. It’s a whole other dimension than simply giving a gift of money, because you are able to purchase specific things that are needed.

Food for the Hungry’s efforts here represent a great way to bring innovation and creativity to the fight against global poverty. Their efforts show that innovation and creativity shouldn’t just apply to the for-profit sector — they are just as important in the cause of social good as well.

Their gift catalog is online and is well worth looking through. Plus, as I mentioned above, it’s a lot of fun!

Filed Under: Poverty

Come to Technology and the Glory of God This Saturday in Ames

December 1, 2014 by Matt Perman

logo-2

If you are in or around central Iowa, it would be great to see you at the Technology and the Glory of God conference this Saturday, hosted by Stonebrook church in Ames.

Tim Challies and I will be speaking on, you guessed it, technology and the glory of God.

One of my sessions will be a Q&A, and I especially love hard questions. So feel free bring your most difficult and challenging questions. (Or just ordinary ones are fine too, of course!)

Doors open at 12:30 and the conference goes from 1:00 to 7:00.

You can register and see more details at the Eventbrite page.

Filed Under: Technology, WBN Events

StrengthsFinder App Now Available

December 1, 2014 by Matt Perman

You can get it for your iPhone.

Here’s their description:

Download it now and study your personal strengths wherever you go.

  • If you already have your top five strengths, you can reveal all 34 of your strengths at a discounted price
  • Take the Clifton StrengthsFinder, view your strengths, and read your insight statements.
  • Use your app credentials to access Gallup Strengths Center. And vice versa.
  • The Android version is currently available in English, with the iOS version available in Chinese, German, and Spanish. We will be launching more languages for both platforms in 2015.

Filed Under: Strengths

Reconciling the Call to be Productive with the Messiness of Life

December 1, 2014 by Matt Perman

One of the difficulties in affirming that God calls us to be productive is that this can sometimes be mistaken to mean that there is always an easy solution to our productivity challenges. We can think that there is no place for messiness, difficulty, and even falling behind in the life of truly productive, God-honoring people.

For example, if your car has a problem, you take it to the mechanic and he ought to be able to fix it. That’s what they are trained to do, and most automobile problems are well understood. If your mechanic can’t fix diagnose and fix a broken fuel pump or heater core, there is indeed something wrong with that shop.

Lots of things in life are like this, so it can be easy to think that productivity is supposed to be like that as well. We can easily reduce our thinking to something like this: “You feel like you are always rushing and are pulled in a thousand directions? Well, just do these three things, and it will be all fixed by tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, how did you not know that? [Implication: Something is wrong with you, and look at how great I am for being able to easily “fix” your problem!]”

But managing our tasks, workflow, and lives is not like that. It is not like getting the oil changed or fixing the radiator in your car. The reason is that we are often dealing with the unknown and with ambiguity.

Hence, there are two errors we can fall into. The first is, as I mentioned, to think that there is always an easy solution and that if you are having a tough time keeping up with things, then the problem is always you. That’s simply not true.

The other error, though, would be to conclude from this that there is not any way at all to actually get on top of your work. That would be a very depressing, discouraging reality.

Fortunately, it’s not true. It is possible to be on top of things.

Yet, at the same time, there will be seasons where you aren’t — and perhaps can’t be. 

How do we reconcile these two realities?

By recognizing that productivity is a learning process. Further, by recognizing that it is sometimes a tough learning process. You can grow and get better — but that doesn’t mean it will always be a smooth ride.

It is like learning calculus. You can learn calculus. But it can also be a big challenge.

The challenges along the way don’t mean something is wrong with you. Rather, they are part of the learning process. Further, as we achieve certain levels of effectiveness in managing our work, we graduate to new challenges — which require a new level of learning. So sometimes it can even feel like two steps forward and one step back.

I remember when I was learning Spanish in high school. We reached a point where, when some certain advanced material was introduced, we actually fell backwards in our abilities. It was strange. But our teacher said this was perfectly normal. It’s what happens. It’s part of the learning process as you graduate to new levels of difficulty.

And, it’s temporary. If you keep at it, you make it through these periods and emerge with entirely new, amazing abilities.

If the calculus analogy seems a bit off-putting (since calculus is so hard!), maybe think in terms of learning a foreign language, or even learning algebra. Most productivity stuff is not calculus level. The point is simply that in learning anything, there will be ups and downs.

I think this allows us to account for the biblical teaching that things will not always be going perfectly for us (including our productivity abilities) while also affirming the equally true other biblical reality that we can indeed make a difference in our lives for the better.

It helps us avoid a prosperity gospel-like view of productivity, thinking that everything is always supposed to be perfect if you are just doing the right things, without falling into a defeatism that says we are somehow supposed to be always stuck.

We aren’t supposed to be stuck, and there is hope. It just takes a learning process and persistence, not a magic wand.

Filed Under: 1 - Productivity

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2

About

What’s Best Next exists to help you achieve greater impact with your time and energy — and in a gospel-centered way.

We help you do work that changes the world. We believe this is possible when you reflect the gospel in your work. So here you’ll find resources and training to help you lead, create, and get things done. To do work that matters, and do it better — for the glory of God and flourishing of society.

We call it gospel-driven productivity, and it’s the path to finding the deepest possible meaning in your work and the path to greatest effectiveness.

Learn More

About Matt Perman

Matt Perman started What’s Best Next in 2008 as a blog on God-centered productivity. It has now become an organization dedicated to helping you do work that matters.

Matt is the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done and a frequent speaker on leadership and productivity from a gospel-driven perspective. He has led the website teams at Desiring God and Made to Flourish, and is now director of career development at The King’s College NYC. He lives in Manhattan.

Learn more about Matt

Newsletter

Subscribe for exclusive updates, productivity tips, and free resources right in your inbox.

The Book


Get What’s Best Next
Browse the Free Toolkit
See the Reviews and Interviews

The Video Study and Online Course


Get the video study as a DVD from Amazon or take the online course through Zondervan.

The Study Guide


Get the Study Guide.

Other Books

Webinars

Follow

Follow What's Best next on Twitter or Facebook
Follow Matt on Twitter or Facebook

Foundational Posts

3 Questions on Productivity
How to Get Your Email Inbox to Zero Every Day
Productivity is Really About Good Works
Management in Light of the Supremacy of God
The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards in Categories
Business: A Sequel to the Parable of the Good Samaritan
How Do You Love Your Neighbor at Work?

Recent Posts

  • How to Learn Anything…Fast
  • Job Searching During the Coronavirus Economy
  • Ministry Roundtable Discussion on the Pandemic with Challies, Heerema, Cosper, Thacker, and Schumacher
  • Is Calling Some Jobs Essential a Helpful Way of Speaking?
  • An Interview on Coronavirus and Productivity

Sponsors

Useful Group

Posts by Date

Posts by Topic

Search Whatsbestnext.com

Copyright © 2023 - What's Best Next. All Rights Reserved. Contact Us.