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Two Articles I Just Cited in My Book on Fitting Hard Thinking into Busy Schedules, Which I Highly Recommend

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And both of these are simply an application of what Drucker said in The Effective Executive:

“To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive, therefore needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have small dribs and drabs of time at [your] disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.”

Perspiration is Often the Best Form of Differentiation

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Scott Belsky in Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality:

Perspiration is the best form of differentiation, especially in the creative world. Work ethic alone can single-handedly give your ideas the boost that makes all the difference.

Unfortunately, perspiration is not glamorous. Endless late nights, multiple redrafts, and countless meetings consume the majority of your time — all with the intention of breathing life into your projects.

Passion for your work will also play an important role. Passion yields tolerance — tolerance for all of the frustration and hardship that come your way as you seek to make your ideas happen.

Now this is interesting, because I’m writing about this right now in my book: Creativity works best when channeled within the framework of a basic schedule.

In order to channel your ability to focus — and perspire — for extended periods of time, you will likely need to develop a consistent work schedule. Structuring time spent executing ideas is a best practice of admired creative leaders across industries.

It is the only way to keep up with the continuous stream of action steps and allocate sufficient time for deep thought.

A Series on Managing Stress that Actually Looks Helpful

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I’m not super in to “tips on managing stress” and the like. But stress is a significant reality in our era, and it’s worth learning some things about.

I just noticed that The Teaching Company — which has a host of excellent courses on all sorts of subjects, from science to philosophy to mathematics to history — has the course Stress and Your Body on sale for 70% off right now.

One of the things that looks interesting about it is the way it looks at the physical effects that stress has.

You can get it by audio download, CD, video download, or DVD.

Why Are You Overwhelmed?

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When you go through seasons where you feel — and are — utterly overwhelmed, here’s the ultimate reason:

“For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death itself. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).

Obviously Paul is speaking of great affliction here. But that doesn’t mean this only applies literally when your life is in danger or at risk.

We often limit the scope of what suffering is to only large, dramatic things — and this is unbiblical, as I’ve argued elsewhere.

This passage here applies to all forms of suffering, great and small.

Even if it feels like a small thing in relation to everything else going on in the world, when you feel overwhelmed there is a purpose behind that: it is to to lead you to rely more and more not on yourself, but on God.