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One of the Least Known, But Most Helpful, Books on Productivity

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Along with Getting Things Done, one of the most helpful books I’ve read on productivity is a book called To Do, Doing, Done: A Creative Approach to Managing Projects and Effectively Finishing What Matters Most. I actually read both of them at about the same time back when I was first getting into GTD, and To Do, Doing, Done helped created a more complete picture for me.

The book was written in 1997 and, when it gets into the logistics of things, reflects paper-based practices. However, the principles behind those practices are easily transferable to electronic systems, so it remains insightful.

The most helpful take away for me from the book was how to tie your project plans to your day-to-day actions. Getting Things Done also talks about this, of course, but didn’t go into as much detail. This book provided a complementary perspective that yielded some additional useful insights.

The authors of the book are also coming from the 7 Habits perspective which emphasizes keeping our projects tied to higher level goals and values. This emphasis on the higher levels, along with discussion of how to use your priorities at those levels to choose the right projects, helped to provide an integrated picture.

Last of all, the book simply has some good advice on managing projects in general — something that is relevant to most of us, no matter what we are doing. What they wrote in the introduction is still true today:

In our increasingly demanding world, the people who succeed will be the ones who can initiate, manage, and complete challenging projects. They will be the ones who know how to create a vision that engages everyone involved in the project. They will be able to define expected results; delegate responsibility; break the project down into bite-sized tasks; develop achievable schedules; communicate concisely, clearly, and rapidly; adjust quickly to changes; monitor progress; and accept nothing short of project success.

While I’m not recommending adoption of their approach wholesale, it is a very helpful read for those who are looking for additional insight and tools to pick up and then integrate into their own approach.

Piper and Grudem on the Use of Time

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CJ Mahaney has recently interviewed John Piper and Wayne Grudem. One of the questions in each of the interviews was “What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?”

Here is John Piper’s answer:

A great tree will fall with many small chops. Pray for daily grace to keep chopping.

Here is Wayne Grudem’s answer:

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?

I find the most helpful thing I do regarding use of time is to spend time in prayer each morning bringing my plans and my “to do” list before the Lord and seeking his direction.

As far as human advice and counsel, I have found the system described in Getting Things Done by David Allen to be very helpful—I am just now rereading that to try to get all of my “in box” items back under control again and listed in one place, and then processed. I should add that I find effective use of time to be a continual challenge and I keep making small modifications here and there.

I would also like to say this to you, C.J.: You probably remember that I have talked with you numerous times about how to decide on what things to schedule, how to set priorities, and other questions about wisdom in time management, and your suggestions have always been very helpful!

Several verses of Scripture also have influenced me in this regard. Paul said, “It is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy (or “faithful,” Greek pistos)” (1 Corinthians 4:2) and that has made me seek to be faithful to God in the way I use all of my time.

C.J. Mahaney on Time Management

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C.J. Mahaney has been doing a good series of posts on time management over at the Sovereign Grace blog.

As I’ve mentioned before, I think GTD does very well with the runway and 10,000 foot levels, but leaves the higher levels less developed than I think they need to be. Mahaney’s posts hit the higher levels well, talking a lot about roles, goals, and scheduling.

The True Goal of a Planning System: Deciding What Not to Do

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That title may be a bit of an overstatement. But there is a fundamental truth here: The main challenge is not to figure out how to get through a task list of 1,000 things. The main challenge is that there are constantly hundreds of things that are trying to pull us away from what we should be doing, from what is most important.

Most of those are good things. But if you attend to all of them, you will not be able to focus your efforts on what is truly most important for you to be doing at the present time — the present day, current week, current month, current year.

Having everything captured in a well-organized system that you review regularly allows you to see, within those things, what is most important. And, therefore, which things need to be chopped off so that you can truly, effectively, get those most important things done.