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You are here: Home / Archives for 9 Other Resource Types / WBN News / WBN Webinars

How to Plan Your Decade Webinar: Now Available

March 27, 2020 by Matt Perman

If you weren’t able to join us back in December for our 60-minute webinar on how to plan your decade, the recording is now available for everyone in the store. In addition to the presentation, I also respond to the great questions from those who attended online. It is $12.

Why Do You Need this Webinar?
A long-term perspective has been shown to be one of the most essential ingredients for living a productive life. Thinking deliberately about your vision and goals for the 2020s is a great opportunity to cultivate that habit and set yourself up to make the most of the next ten years. Even more, it is very motivating.

Many of you are familiar with the GTD concept of the weekly review. The weekly review is the linchpin of any productivity approach, and is a very versatile concept. It can be adapted into monthly reviews, quarterly reviews, and yearly reviews. In this workshop, I adapt that to the concept of the decade review.

So take a concept you are already familiar with and amp it up to set yourself up for success for the next ten years.

Of course, there are two objections we might have to this concept.

Hasn’t the Decade Already Started?
The first is: hasn’t the decade already begun–so isn’t it too late? The answer is that while a new decade does create a special type of motivation (it’s called a “temporal landmark”), this motivation is something that endures for a period of time. It doesn’t have to be a single point. Any time in the first six months, or even first year or two even of a new decade, can be an effective time for your decade planning.

And aside from that, the concept of a decade review can be utilized in many different ways other than the turn of a decade on a calendar — for example, when you enter a new personal decade like turning 30, you hit an anniversary in another area of life (in your business, marriage, etc.), and just in general whenever you want to create a long-range vision. So this concept is very useful at all times.

Hasn’t Coronavirus Thrown Off All Our Plans?
Second, we might say: hasn’t the Coronavirus changed everything? The plans a person made in January for the decade are likely all shot now. So why plan at all?

If this is your question, you will enjoy the webinar all the more. I talk about how the fact that circumstances change is not a reason to dismiss planning; rather, it is one of the greatest reasons we need to plan in the first place.

Getting clear on what you want (and what God wants for you) for the next set of years enables you to adapt to new situations more effectively and harness unplanned opportunities. As I discuss in the webinar, we actually need to distinguish a vision from a plan. A vision is much more broad and flexible — there are many ways to get there, and you adapt as circumstances require.

We call this “decade planning,” however, because that is the more common term that more easily connects. But really this webinar is about creating a vision for your life, and then from that vision, yes, creating more detailed plans — but you adjust those plans as needed in your other reviews (yearly, quarterly, weekly, and as otherwise needed).

So this webinar will help you be even more agile and adaptable in these uncertain times — while staying fixed on a foundation of a core purpose and God-centered values that do not change.

You can purchase it now in the online store.

Filed Under: Personal Vision, WBN Webinars Tagged With: Test tag

Bring Your Best Questions to Tomorrow’s Online Workshop

February 17, 2020 by Matt Perman

One of the best things about the online workshops is that they provide an opportunity for questions. I also happen to love questions–the more challenging, the better. Q&A is one of my favorite things.

So if you’ve signed up for tomorrow’s workshop, bring some of your hardest questions! After the presentation, you can ask anything about how to get unstuck from your most difficult productivity challenges or about productivity in general. You might ask things like:

  • I get stuck from having so much email. How do I cut it down or process it better?
  • My project is at a plateau. How do I move it forward?
  • I get stuck from constant interruptions. How do I handle them better?
  • My to-do list annoys me; how do I make it better?
  • I feel pulled in a thousand directions and constantly torn. How do I create more balance?
  • What is the process for getting unstuck from anything?
  • What does it even mean to get unstuck?

These are just a few ideas. We are going to give a lot of focus to questions tomorrow, so come with your most relevant and challenging questions and we will try to get you unstuck!

And if you haven’t signed up yet for the webinar, you can still do so until midnight EST tonight.

UPDATE: Registration for this event is now closed. Thank you.

 

 

Filed Under: WBN Webinars

How to Get Unstuck in 2020 Using Design Thinking—Next Week’s Online Workshop

February 10, 2020 by whatsbestnext

UPDATE: Registration for this event is now closed. Thank you.

The new decade has begun…and most of us have probably already blown our New Year’s resolutions. Is there a way to get back on track?

Or, even apart from any New Year’s resolutions, we often have goals and meaningful projects that we are pursuing–but we’re stuck. We keep hitting obstacles (whether external or internal) that get in our way.

How do we get unstuck and accomplish our goals—with less effort, greater impact, and more margin? And how do we do this in a gospel-centered way, arising from God’s grace rather than sheer willpower? It is possible! Part of the answer is learning how to think like a designer and applying design thinking to our obstacles.

In this upcoming online workshop (next Tuesday, February 18th at 11:00 AM CST), Matt Perman will give you 4 tools, based in design thinking, for getting unstuck in a gospel-centered way that you can put into practice right away.

Spots are limited so be sure to reserve your virtual seat before registration closes on February 16th.

UPDATE: Registration for this event is now closed. Thank you.

 

 

Filed Under: i Productivity Obstacles, WBN Webinars

From How-To to When-To: Why to Plan Your Next Ten Years

December 17, 2019 by Matt Perman

New Year’s resolutions. Are they useless? Is it a myth that the new year is a good time to start fresh?

Based on the lack of success most people have with their resolutions, it might seem so. And, after all, doesn’t the idea that a new year represents a new start seem kind of arbitrary? Why would January 1 be a more powerful day than any other?

But it turns out that our intuitive sense that there is something to a new year is actually correct. As shown in Dan Pink’s book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, a new year is what researchers call a temporal landmark. These temporal landmarks help us navigate our way through time, just as physical landmarks help us navigate our way through space.

A temporal landmark switches on our motivation, and makes it possible for us to start (or re-start) in a stronger way. And this matters very much. “In most endeavors, we should be awake to the power of beginnings and aim to make a strong start…Beginnings have a far greater impact than most of us understand. Beginnings, in fact, can matter to the end.”

Researchers have found that a temporal landmarks help us in two chief ways. First, they allow us to:

open “new mental accounts” in the same way that a business closes the books at the end of one fiscal year and opens a fresh ledger for the new year. This new period offers a chance to start again by relegating our old selves to the past. It disconnects us from that past self’s mistakes and imperfections, and leaves us confident about our new, superior selves. Fortified by that confidence, we “behave better than we have in the past and strive with enhanced fervor to achieve our aspirations.”

Second, “these time markers is to shake us out of the tree so we can glimpse the forest.” They take our focus off of our day-to-day minutiae and lift it up to the big picture. This wide-angle view of our lives allows us to see more clearly and focus on our goals. It slows down our thinking so that we can deliberate at a higher level.

It turns out that you can do this with lots of days, not just the new year. Birthdays, anniversaries of any major event, the start of a new school year, the beginning of a month, and so forth. “Imbuing an otherwise ordinary day with personal meaning generates the power to activate new beginnings.”

So if you don’t plan your decade, all is not lost. Nonetheless, here we are presented with an incredible opportunity to create a fresh start and take in the big picture. For we don’t just have he power of a new year starting; we have the power of a new set of ten years starting.

This is a unique temporal landmark that we can harness to clarify our vision and amp our motivation in a greater way than the start of a standard year. You can use the beginning of this new decade to harness the fresh start effect and create a strategic turning point in your personal history. And it just so happens that thinking ahead ten years is about the perfect amount of time to clarify a good vision for your life that is long enough to give you good direction but not so long that it seems unattainable.

So where do you want to be in ten years? What are the milestones along the way? And what are the key lessons from the last ten years? These are important questions to ask, and science now confirms it.

What we need now is a process to do this. A process for planning our decade. I call it a “decade review.” Most of us now are familiar with David Allen’s concept of the weekly review from Getting Things Done. I have long adapted the concept of the weekly review to other important time markers as well: the monthly review, quarterly review, and yearly review. Now it’s time for the decade review.

I’ll give some tips on how to do it in the next two posts. But if you want to go deeper and learn about how to do a decade review live and more directly, I am doing a webinar this Thursday, December 19, at 11:00 am Central Time. You can sign up here. It will be new stuff that goes beyond what I will be posting next on how to do it, so I encourage you to join us! UPDATE: Registration for this event is now closed. Thank you.

 

“Shifting our focus—and giving when the same weight as what—won’t cure all our ills. But it’s a good beginning.”

— Dan Pink

 

Filed Under: Personal Vision, WBN Webinars

How to Plan Your Decade—Next Week’s Online Workshop

December 10, 2019 by whatsbestnext

Where do you want to be in 10 years?

2019 is ending, and a new decade is beginning. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover or recalibrate the long-term vision for your life!

We don’t achieve our goals on accident. Those who look to the future with purpose and make long-term plans are more likely to succeed and make good decisions than those who don’t.

In this upcoming online workshop—December 19th at 11:00 AM CST—Matt Perman will show you how to move from the GTD concept of a “weekly review” to a “decade review.” You will learn how to start your decade off right and make the most of your next ten years.

Spots are limited so be sure to reserve your virtual seat before registration closes on December 17th.

 

UPDATE: Registration for this event is now closed. Thank you.

 

Filed Under: Personal Vision, WBN Webinars

For Those in the Kansas City Area: Join Me Thursday Nights for Questioning Christianity

March 30, 2016 by Matt Perman

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Beginning this Thursday night and continuing for 8 weeks, my wife and I are doing a series for skeptics and interested Christians called Questioning Christianity. 

If you are in the Kansas City area, we would love for you to join us! And if you can, bring an unbelieving friend or two. We will be exploring the biggest challenges to the Christian faith, and we encourage people to bring their toughest questions. Our goal is to create a safe space where people can talk about the difficulties they have with Christianity, while showing that there is solid evidence for the Christian faith.

Here are the details:

What is Questioning Christianity?

Questioning Christianity is an 8-week series where you can bring your biggest doubts, questions, and challenges with the Christian faith. This is a safe space where there is no judgment for disagreeing and honest dialogue is welcome.

We will begin with a brief presentation addressing a specific challenging question or looking at the evidence for Christianity, followed by an interactive Q&A.

Some of the issues we will look at include:

  • Is there good evidence for Christianity, or do we have to take it entirely on faith?
  • Can we trust the Bible?
  • Is there good historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ?
  • How can Jesus be the only way to God?
  • Why does God allows suffering and evil in the world?
  • What does it mean to be a Christian?

These are questions that are central to life and which many people wonder about. But it is often hard to find good answers. We want to help people wrestle through their doubts and objections, showing that there are solid answers while affirming the need for people to proceed at their own pace–without feeling pressured, forced, or judged.

When is It?

Every Thursday night, March 31 – May 26, from 6 pm to 8 pm.

That means it begins this Thursday!

Where is It?

Kansas City, Kansas. Specifically, it will be at pretty cool co-working space just to the west of the Plaza:

The Village Square
4436 State Line Rd
Kansas City, KS 66103

(Here are directions.)

Who Should Come?

Anybody with honest questions about the Christian faith. Especially skeptics and seekers, but also Christians who want to know more about why it is reasonable and sensible to accept the truth of Christianity.

You can keep up to date by liking the Facebook page.

We would love to see you there!

 

Filed Under: a Apologetics, WBN Webinars

Online Training in January: Workflow Management

January 4, 2016 by whatsbestnext

We were greatly encouraged by the response to the online training we piloted last month.

If December was too crazy for you, we have two options on workflow management running this month.

We’ll have two live sessions, one tailored for busy professionals (on 1/12/16) and one for pastors & church leaders (on 1/19/16). Join Matt Perman online for 60 minutes as he helps you get control of your week.

Learn more here. 

Filed Under: WBN Events, WBN Webinars

Workflow Webinar for Pastors and Church Leaders

December 1, 2015 by whatsbestnext

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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).

Filed Under: WBN Webinars

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.

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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.

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3 Questions on Productivity
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