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A Chance to Be in My Book: What is the Best Thing You've Learned from Getting Things Done?

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A lot of people that I talk to say “I can’t do everything David Allen outlines in Getting Things Done, but I took away a few key ideas that have made a big impact.” And the main take-away they describe is usually very helpful.

So I’m thinking of having a call-out in the book that highlights the top things various people have taken away from Getting Things Done. I’ve been asking this question of some people I’ve interviewed for the book, and I’d love to hear your thoughts as well.

Just shoot me an email or add a comment below answering this question: “What is the most helpful thing you learned from Getting Things Done?”

Send me your questions on productivity

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One of the things I’m doing for my book is interviewing as many people as I can about their productivity habits and insights. Some of the best insights and practices will likely be incorporated into the book. I might also include short excerpts from some of these interviews as call-outs in the book.

I’ve already interviewed several people, but am refining my questions a bit before doing another round. I’m focusing on Christian leaders, business and non-profit leaders, and anyone who just plain gets a lot done. (One highlight so far, among many others, was interviewing one of the President’s former schedulers — that was very helpful and very interesting!)

So I wanted to ask you: What are some of the questions you’d like me to ask in these interviews? What types of things are you most interested in learning and improving when it comes to your own productivity? And what theological questions about the foundations of productivity would you like to see me ask?

Feel free to email me any questions you’d like me to consider including, or leave them in the comments.

Theological Reflections on Going Under for Nose Surgery Tomorrow

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2010 02-10 013
Shortly after breaking my nose in the Wal-Mart parking lot

Last February I broke my nose in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It’s a funny story that maybe I will tell sometime. Tomorrow I have to go in for surgery to get it fixed. (Complicated insurance reasons are driving me to get it done before the end of the year!)

They knock you out entirely for this surgery, which in one sense I am glad about. (But, in another sense, I’m not looking forward to it because it means you are having things done to you over which you will be entirely helpless about yourself!).

The surgery is not a huge deal (and all the damage is on the inside — you can’t tell by looking at it that it was broke), and I’ve talked to a lot of people who have had this done. But in light of being knocked out entirely, there are two doctrines, or truths about God, that particularly come to mind and which I will be relying on as I go under.

1. The Doctrine of Vocation

I don’t know if the doctor who will be performing the surgery is a believer or not, and he doesn’t have to be in order to be a good and effective doctor. And that’s because of the doctrine of vocation.

The doctrine of vocation teaches us that when each of us are operating in our vocations, it is ultimately God who is at work. God is “hidden” in vocation — including those of non-Christians.

Gene Veith does the best so far of articulating this doctrine for us today (see his excellent book God at Work). Veith points out that the doctrine of vocation is why, in the Lord’s Prayer for example, we can pray “give us this day our daily bread” even though the bread comes to us through the work of a thousand different people (the farmer who planted the seeds and harvested the wheat, the people that used the wheat to make the bread, the people that designed the company’s process for making the bread, the people that built the machines used in making the bread, the marketing department that enables people to know about the bread, the truck drivers that delivered the bread to the grocery store, the stock people who stock the shelves with the bread, and so forth).

The reason we pray to God to give us our daily bread, even though it comes through the actions of humans, is because God is at work through each person’s vocation to serve us and his creation.

As Veith puts it:

Though he could give it to us directly, by a miraculous provision, as He once did for the children of Israel when He fed them daily with manna, God has chosen to work through human beings, who, in their different capacities and according to their different talents, serve one another. This is the doctrine of vocation.

And:

Luther goes so far as to say that vocation is a mask of God. That is, God hides Himself in the workplace, the family, the Church, and the seemingly secular society. To speak of God being hidden is a way of describing His presence, as when a child hiding in the room is there, just not seen. To realize that the mundane activities that take up most of our lives. . . are hiding-places for God can be a revelation in itself.

As it is with our daily bread, so also it is with this surgery: ultimately it is not the doctor at work to produce this outcome of a repaired nose, but God. The doctrine of vocation enables me to acknowledge and even admire what the doctor is able to do, while ultimately looking up to God as the one who is himself bringing this about and fixing my nose. (I only wish he wanted to do this one through a miracle!)

We might normally think, “If God is going to fix my nose, then a fixed nose will miraculously appear.” But no. The doctrine of vocation teaches us that tomorrow, when the surgeon repairs my nose, that itself is God giving me the gift of a fixed nose. God is fixing my nose tomorrow — not through a miracle or instant fix, but through the work of the surgeon. And the outcome will be just as much from God as if He had done it directly.

This gives both comfort and significance to the experience of something like surgery, let alone all the other things that we do and experience in our daily lives. As Veith goes on to say:

Most people seek God in mystical experiences, spectacular miracles, and extraordinary acts they have to do. [But] to find Him in vocation brings Him, literally, down to earth, makes us see how close He really is to us, and transfigures everyday life.

2. God’s Providence for Believers

The doctrine of vocation is obviously very related to the doctrine of providence. When it comes to providence, there are two main types that theologians distinguish: God’s general providence, which is his governance and care over all creation, and God’s special providence in redemptive history, such as his special work to preserve the Scriptures and lead the church to recognize the correct books of the canon.

There’s also a third category worth thinking of, which is simply God’s providence over his church and the lives of believers. I think it is warranted to think of this distinct from God’s general providence over creation because of all the promises that he makes to his people. Things such as:

God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles eagerly seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. (Matthew 6:31-32)

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church. (Ephesians 1:22 — in other words, Jesus rules all things for the sake of the church)

Now here’s what I find very remarkable in this experience. In many ways, we are able to attend to our more immediate needs. Or, more accurately, God meets these needs through our actions. When we are hungry, we can go get some food. If a driver seems to be coming into our lane, we slow down or move over. If a baseball is flying right at our head, we can knock it down or move. We are able, to a certain degree, to work and do stuff to provide for our needs and safety.

But tomorrow when I go under the anesthesia for the nose surgery, apparently I won’t even be able to breathe for myself unaided (they have to put a tube in). I will go from having some role and involvement in the meeting of my needs to none.

That feels strange. As I look ahead to this, because of his providence and care, what stands out to me is that God will be watching over me in this time. It’s not that he isn’t just as much watching over us when we are awake and have all of our abilities. But there is something unique about the fact that my involvement in the process will be gone. I will be trusting him to keep watch over me and do so entirely independent of me. I will have to stop taking care of myself for a time, and trust that God will do so now not just partly through my actions, but now entirely apart from them.

I know the surgeon will do a great job. But, because of the doctrine of vocation and doctrine of providence, my ultimate trust is not in the surgeon or medical knowledge, but in God working in and through and, in some sense, above those things.

I know this is just nose surgery, they do this all the time, and it’s really simple to think of going under, and then waking up on the other side in the recovery room. But we shouldn’t take God’s provision in these things for granted, any more than we should take his more everyday provisions for granted. We should be thinking about and consciously grateful for God’s provision in all areas of our lives at all times; and having to go through the unpleasant experience of something like nose surgery is, to me at least, a good reminder of this.

In South Africa

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I’m in South Africa for the next few weeks for the Lausanne Congress.

For this week, I’m with John Piper and some others from DG as he speaks at a couple pastors conferences.

Then, beginning Sunday, I’ll be in Cape Town for the actual Congress. It’s a gathering of more than 4,000 Christians from more than 200 nations to discuss the state of global Christianity and world evangelization. The first congress was called by Billy Graham in 1974 and was a major landmark in the progress of modern missions. The second congress was in 1989, and this I now the third. You can learn more about it from the Lausanne website and the helpful article in Christianity Today, The Most Diverse Gathering Ever.

While I’m here I’ll post some updates from the congress and possibly some various insights on issues of missions strategy, Christianity and culture, solving large global problems, and just being in Africa.

Seminar at the DG National Conference

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If anyone is going to be at the DG Conference this weekend, I’ll be doing a seminar on how the gospel gives us a new way to look at productivity and new reasons to care about productivity. Looks like I’ll be giving the seminar twice, at 1:00 and 3:00 on Friday (tomorrow) afternoon.

I’d love to meet anyone who is going to be there, so feel free to stop up after and say hi!

Also: I enjoy really, really hard questions. So come with the most challenging questions you have and I’ll be happy to give them my best shot.

On Writing A Book

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I mentioned last week that I’m working on a book on productivity, and that I’d give more details soon. Here’s a 40,000 foot, very rough, initial snapshot.

Some people might ask, “another book on productivity?” Rest assured, I’m not interested in repeating cliches. I’ll be making connections that I don’t see other people making, but which I think are absolutely necessary to how we think about productivity.

I want to do two things in this book. First, I want to give the theological basis for productivity. The question I’m asking is “how should we think about productivity as Christians?” There are some very surprising things here. More specifically, I’m going to mine the relationship between productivity and the gospel, so that we can have a gospel-oriented approach to our productivity. Believe me, this matters (and I’ll be showing why).

After giving the theological foundations for how to think about productivity, I’m then going to give a practical, simple approach to managing your life and work effectively. In particular, I’m going to try to present an overall approach that solves some of the snags that you run into with both GTD and Franklin-Covey (the two most well-known approaches to productivity).

Both of those approaches are fantastically helpful. But both have a few snags that can easily lead you to spend more time than you ought to managing your system rather than actually getting things done or just taking time to think and be with people. Maybe these snags flow from how we use them (or how I have used them!) or the way technology has increased our pace in just the last few years, but regardless, I think that we have need now for an updated approach (that is kept as simple as possible).

I’ll be covering some of the highlights of this in my workshop this fall at the Desiring God National Conference. You can glean part of my perspective from my title there: Zealous for Good Works: Rethinking Productivity in Light of Justification by Faith Alone.

A Snapshot in to How Books take Shape

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I mentioned briefly the other day that I’m starting work on a book. I’ll give more details on what the book is about and so forth shortly.

I thought it might be fun not only to talk about the book itself (float ideas, post some early drafts parts of chapters, and so forth), but also talk a bit about my process as well. After all, it seems very fitting, when writing a book on productivity, to peel back the curtains a bit on the productivity process involved in creating that very book.

So, even though it is a bit out of order to talk about the process before what the book is actually a bit, here’s the first snapshot for you.

[Read more…]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

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I hope that everyone had a good Christmas and is looking forward to the new year (new decade, actually). Thanks again to everyone for reading!

I’ve been posting a bit less the last few weeks of the year so that I can focus more fully on some large projects. I’ll probably have a few more posts this week, and then it will be back to normal in the new year.

Drawing Results

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Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing! I’ve drawn the winners and will be emailing them today.

Thanks again, and thanks for reading!

Subscribers, Enter to Win Two Free Books

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I’ve never done something like this before, and am actually kind of hesitant. But some people that I respect do this on their blogs once in a while and I think it might be kind of fun, so I’m going to give it a try.

Here are the rules:

  1. Subscribe to the blog before the end of tomorrow (Wed, Oct 28).
  2. Contact me and tell me that you subscribed.
  3. If you are already a subscriber, mention this blog to some friends, contact me, and I’ll enter you into the drawing as well. (If you are a new subscriber, you can do this as well, and I’ll enter you twice.)
  4. I’ll draw 2 winners, email them back to ask them their address, and send them each 2 free books.

The two books will be:

1. The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees) by Patrick Lencioni.

I picked this book because everyone can relate to a miserable job and Lencioni provides great points here on how to make your job (and, if you are a manager, those of your employees) more rewarding and fulfilling.

The first part of the book is a fictional story, and the second part lays out the concepts. This was the first Lencioni book that I read, and I found it very refreshing.

2. Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance by Marcus Buckingham.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve found Marcus Buckingham to be one of the most helpful and insightful business thinkers around. His focus is how to discover your strengths and base your role on them rather than on “fixing your weaknesses.” It is a revolutionary insight and has tons of implications outside of work as well.

Here’s the first part of the blurb for this book:

Beginning with the million-copy bestsellers First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham jump-started the strengths movement that is now sweeping the work world, from business to government to education. Now that the movement is in full swing, Buckingham’s new book answers the ultimate question: How can you actually apply your strngths for maximum success at work?