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Productivity Tip: Start with Simple

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Here’s a project for you: go build a smart phone this weekend.

I’ll give you some parts and some tools. You can pull from the internet if you want. And we’ll help you keep the distractions away. How do you think your project will turn out?

If you’re like most people, it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster. Why?  Because it’s virtually impossible to build a complex system from scratch.

Productivity Complexity

If you’re new to thinking about productivity and personal effectiveness, you may be surprised by how complex the whole subject can be.

There’s the theology piece. There’s the motivation piece. There’s weekly planning and workflow management and a hundred digital tools that might help you. You have different roles, specific strengths, and personal passions…

Then, as soon as you make some progress fitting the pieces together for you, you realize that you better figure out how your personal system fits (or doesn’t fit) with your colleagues. It doesn’t matter how “effective” your system is if you can’t work with others to be truly productive.

All this complexity can keep you from getting started.

The good news is you don’t have to jump in to the deep end of the productivity pool.

Start with Simple

Today’s tip is simply to “start with simple.”

This comes from Gall’s Law, named after John Gall, a systems theorist who wrote the book Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail. It goes like this:

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: a complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a simple system.

So, permission granted to start simple.

Simplicity is incredibly powerful in how it allows you to get started and in what it makes possible down the line.

A Few Simple Places to Start

Productivity Tip: Remember the Intangibles (and go to conferences)

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Remember the Intangibles

The tendency to focus only on immediate, directly measurable results is a common productivity fallacy for individuals and organizations.

Way back in 1982 Tom Peters and Robert Waterman termed this “the numerative bias,” and gave example after example of how a narrow concern for numbers leads managers and leaders to overlook the things that really make their products and services shine—and thus leads them to do things to “cut costs” and increase the bottom line that actually end up undermining their results in the long-term. 

This is the great irony: defining productivity mainly in terms of immediate measurable results actually undermines the measurable results in the long-run.

The time and energy and resources you invest in the intangibles is not lost; it is not a “cost of doing business.” It’s an investment that pays substantial returns in the long run. It’s just that you can’t always draw a direct and immediate line to the results. But the results are there, and the connection is there, just as the farmer who sows a crop in the spring sees results—not immediately, but in the fall, when it’s time to harvest.

We too need to have this longterm view when it comes to our effectiveness and productivity, both as individuals and as organizations.

Attending Conferences

One example here for the knowledge worker is attending conferences or industry events. I believe that all knowledge workers should go to every conference they can because these are prime opportunities to connect with people, benefit from excellent teachers, and share ideas—essential to knowledge work. But many think that going to a conference is a luxury or bonus, something to do only if you can get your other, “real” work done.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Going to conferences is a key part of the work of any leader and manager. It is one of the many intangibles at the heart of knowledge work in our day.

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Adapted from What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. See also Tom Peters and Robert Waterman’s In Search of Excellence, especially chapter 6, “Close to the Customer,” where they note that high performing companies are “mainly oriented toward the value, rather than the cost, side of the profitability equation,” and chapter 2, “The Rational Model.” See also my article, Against Over-professionalism in Management: Managing for the Human Side

Hope for Those Who Feel Totally Unproductive

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Job loss, economic downturns, illness, accidents, and a host of other difficult circumstances mean that at some point most of us will face something beyond a typical productivity challenge. We will have times when we’ll be seemingly unable to get much done at all that feels “productive.”

If you’re in a situation like that, take hope in the truth that you can be faithful wherever you are, however meager your energy and resources seem to be.

The book of Revelation, for example, teaches that faithfulness is the means by which we overcome the world and obtain victory. Christ specifically emphasizes this in his letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 in relation to those who are powerless and seemingly unable to do anything:

  • “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich).” – Revelation 2:9
  • “I know you that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” – Revelation 3:8

You can be poor in this world, and yet utterly rich before Christ (Revelation 2:9). You can be utterly powerless in this world, and yet highly regarded by Christ (Revelation 3:8). This is true riches.

Trusting in him and obeying his commands is the essence of what God requires, and you can do this wherever you are and in whatever condition you are in.

No matter what your situation, you can look to God (Psalm 18:6), you can pray for the spread of the gospel among all nations (Matthew 6:9-10), you can be kind to the people who cross your path (1 Corinthians 13:5), and you can point them to your hope in Christ (1 Peter 3:15). “Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God” (Isaiah 50:10).

And, no matter what situation you’re in, you can pray. You can do more through prayer than you can imagine. “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think…to him be glory” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

If you can pray, you can change the world.

Workflow Webinar for Pastors and Church Leaders

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CRAFT (3)

The Pastor’s Week – A What’s Best Next Webinar (12/9/2015)

Our next online training will be a live webinar especially for pastors on workflow management.

Pastors and church leaders have demanding schedules. From weekly sermon prep to crisis situations, being a pastor requires frequently switching gears to serve your church.  And no matter how much you love Christ and want to serve his people, productivity challenges and seasons of overload can happen to the best, most faithful pastor. Constantly switching gears between “the urgent” and “the necessary” can be exhausting. It becomes almost impossible to work projects to completion and gain a sense of momentum.

Join Matt Perman next Wednesday in this 60 minute live webinar as he explores the unique aspects of pastoral productivity, guiding biblical principles, and practical tips for managing your workflow, protecting time for what’s most important, and how to get back on track when things zoom out of control.

The Details

  • Presenter: Matt Perman
  • Date: December 9, 2015
  • Time: 9:00 am CST ; 2:00 pm CST
  • Cost: $34
  • Login details: After signing up, your registration will be approved within 48 hours and we’ll email you details for joining your choice of the the morning or afternoon session on 12/9 (via GotoWebinar).