by Matt Perman
From his book Leadership:
I believe that if you read enough about something, you’re going to unravel its mystery, and will ultimately understand the fundamentals in a deeper way than simple observation would provide. Then, if you have an inquiring mind, you can apply yourself to that subject and have success in ways not experienced even by those who have spent much more time on it.
by Matt Perman
At the Seth Godin Live event in DC (about two weeks ago now), I asked Seth: “There are so many things to do that clamor for our attention and make it hard to focus on what we really want to do. How do we keep these things from setting the agenda and instead carve out the time to do work that matters?”
His answer was great. To slightly paraphrase, he said:
The issue is not “How do I find time to work on projects?” Rather, a Linchpin says, “I create projects that matter. How do I then carve out the time to work on the stuff they think is my real job?”
That is great advice. You’ll notice that this is simply another variation on the fundamental principle of time management: put first things first.
Do not fall into the trap of thinking that if you just get “all this other stuff” out of the way, then you’ll have the time and energy to focus on the most important (and thus, usually, most challenging) things you have to do. It does not work that way.
Instead, make working on the most important things — which Seth would define as emotional labor in projects that are worth doing and that you deeply care about — your primary work. Then, fit the other things in when you can.
One last thing: It’s not that the “other things” are always trivial or unimportant. Many of them (though not all) do need to be done. But the thing is that if you do them first, you’ll rarely get to the most important things. On the other hand, if you do the most important things first, you’ll find that you have the time you need left over for the other things.
by Matt Perman
This is not exactly breaking news, either, but it’s well worth pointing to nonetheless: Crossway has now released the ESV Study Bible for the iPad and iPhone. You can find them in the App Store.
The app is simply fantastic. They really nailed the user interface and the very challenging puzzle of how to make it easy for the user to access the study Bible notes without interfering with simply reading the text itself. There was clearly some detailed, user-oriented thought that went into developing this app. This is what we need more of. It is a great service to not only make the Scriptures and God-centered content available, to make them easily available in a user-centered format.
Thank you, Crossway!
by Matt Perman
It’s not exactly breaking news, but if you haven’t heard: OmniFocus for iPad was finally released on Friday. Here’s a quick summary from PC World:
OmniFocus for iPad isn’t just some gussied up version of the iPhone version either: the app’s been redesigned for the iPad from the ground up. You can organize tasks into projects, folders, and sub-tasks and nest them until your heart is content; tasks themselves support detailed options like start dates, due dates, repeating schedules, audio notes, and photo attachments.
If you want to organize your tasks by category or specific context (“things to do while you’re at the computer,” for example [by the way–I think that’s a bad idea!]), you can do that too. And if those contexts involve specific locations–your local supermarket and post office for example–you can look at a map to quickly get an idea of where all your tasks might take you.
If you’re an OmniFocus user on the Mac and/or the iPhone, OmniFocus on the iPad will happily sync with them, making sure your tasks are always up to date, no matter which device you’re on. If you ever run into problems, The Omni Group even offers free customer support via both e-mail and phone.
You can get OmniFocus for iPad in the App Store here.
by Matt Perman
From Drucker in The Effective Executive:
The knowledge worker cannot be supervised closely or in detail. He can only be helped. But he must direct himself, and he must direct himself toward performance and contribution, that is, toward effectiveness.
Further:
The motivation of the knowledge worker depends on his being effective, on his being able to achieve. If effectiveness is lacking in his or her work, his commitment to work and to contribution will soon wither, and he will become a time-server going through the motions from 9-5.