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

Get to Know Our Newest Coach

June 26, 2019 by whatsbestnext

At What’s Best Next, we pick our coaches carefully. We can’t just be thinking about productivity in the abstract, we need to know how to understand someone else’s challenges and help them make meaningful change.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce you to our newest coach, Daniel Kaufman. Daniel hails from the southern U.S., where he spent over a decade at Chick-fil-A helping train restaurant leaders and operators. He brings to our team a passion for organizational health, building successful teams, and gospel-driven change. 

Here’s a brief interview we did with Daniel.

Please tell us a little about where you’re from.
I’m a Georgia native, born and raised, and I’ve lived in the same 45-mile radius my whole life. I graduated from a two-stoplight town to another two-stoplight town called Senoia, GA. I grew up in a Christian home, but didn’t become a Christian until my early 20s—a common Bible-belt story. I have 3 siblings and some nieces and nephews that I adore.

What do you like to do for fun?
When I have spare time, I like to practice humility by playing disc golf at one of the local courses. I don’t always make it through all 18 holes, but that’s fine because I stop trying to keep track of my poor score around hole 12. If you walked into my house, you’d notice some musical instruments as well as board games. Both are go-tos when I or my roommates have the time.

How did you begin working with What’s Best Next?
Well, it started with me growing in my walk with the Lord from reading the book What’s Best Next. I had been interested in reading productivity and consulting books through the lens of Scripture. I would write notes in the margins about how something did or didn’t align with the Bible. Matt’s book was the first one I read where the author had already done that work, and I really fell in love with the truths and principles he was teaching. 

Jump forward a few years—I was using What’s Best Next and The Advantage (I’m also a huge Patrick Lencioni fan) to build my teams, but I hit a slump. Somewhere along the way, I learned that What’s Best Next provided productivity coaching. I signed up and started working with Matt. Those times were a huge encouragement to me, but an unexpected side effect was how much I developed a desire to work more with What’s Best Next one day and help others in the way I was helped. What’s Best Next was starting to expand coaching, but the time wasn’t quite right. That was a few years ago. This spring, the timing worked out and I’ve now been coaching officially with What’s Best Next for a few months.

You’ve done a lot of reading about work strategy and tactics. Any favorite tactics or tools you’ve found over the years?
I really like a lot of Patrick Lencioni’s models and checklists. They have helped me significantly. I’m a fan of What’s Best Next’s DARE framework and asking myself the question, “what’s best next?” in a prayerful way. I also use the 5 Whys technique for help in cause and effect problem-solving. A final favorite is the idea that simpler is generally better. We talk a lot at What’s Best Next about sticking to our core mission and centering our work around the right principles. I suppose you could say a favorite “tactic” is pruning to keep things from becoming too complicated.

What’s one of the toughest productivity challenges you’ve faced?
There was a point in my career where my team and I all felt stuck and I was exhausted. We were doing too much and it wasn’t super clear how to make changes within the current system. But we pushed forward and experimented and kept working. I was able to grow in more effective delegation and allowing others on the team to step up and grow. Eventually we got unstuck and after two years we even saw some of the changes we made in our team implemented across the organization, but at the time it felt like we would never make progress.

Do you have a favorite part of working as a What’s Best Next coach?
I’ve really enjoyed the role so far. The team is great to work with, and each person we serve has a unique story that we get to enter into. It’s a privilege to come alongside fellow Christians to support them. Growing up, I always wanted to be involved in so many different things around the world, and coaching has afforded me that opportunity as I work with people from Texas to Thailand.

Curveball. Do you have any hidden talents?
I don’t know about hidden, but I enjoy playing music every so often. Most people have never seen me play much guitar or piano. I studied theory early on, and can somewhat pick up and play any stringed instrument at this point—as long as it doesn’t require a bow!

Any parting advice if someone reading this is thinking about coaching others?
Pray for a genuine interest in the lives and good of others. Stay curious. People are fascinating, and there are always more layers and new insights to be learned for serving them better. You may know someone for years and then something comes up that helps you understand them in a fresh way. So stay curious!


Want to work with Daniel or another What’s Best Next coaches on the productivity challenges you’re facing?
Learn more about our coaching options.

 

Filed Under: WBN Coaching

More Coaching Spots Now Available

June 20, 2019 by whatsbestnext

We’ve been planning ways to serve you better, and to grow sustainably at What’s Best Next. Lately we’ve focused a lot of energy on expanding our coaching center to help more men and women across industries.

Today we’re happy to announce we’ve increased our coaching capacity.

We now have more summer slots available for our 2 HOUR DARE sessions. Named after the Define, Architect, Reduce, Execute framework in What’s Best Next, these sessions can be a great entry level experience if you’ve never worked with us before—a focused chance to look at some WBN principles and frameworks with an experienced coach to then apply on your own. Or maybe you just need some immediate help tackling current work challenges or are stuck on a complex project.

If you’ve ever thought about What’s Best Next coaching, now’s a great time to jump in on a 2 HOUR DARE session. Spots are first come, first serve for each of our coaches. We look forward to serving each of you soon.

To learn more or request more information about our other coaching options, reach out!

Filed Under: WBN Coaching

Updated Application Journal

April 10, 2019 by whatsbestnext

We’ve been working behind the scenes to change a few things to serve you better. Here’s one of the resources we’re bringing back into our toolkit—the Best Next Steps Application Journal.

This PDF download is a simple tool designed to help someone get back to focusing on what’s best next in their life and work. It offers a taste of how the principles of God’s Word can help us address our motives and actions, and gives a simple way to organize thoughts and next steps.

Download for free from our online store.

 

Filed Under: Productivity Tools, WBN Product News

What’s Best Next on Bold TV

November 27, 2018 by Matt Perman

I was on Bold TV a few weeks ago talking about What’s Best Next and how the Golden Rule is at the heart of how to be productive. I had a great time, and you can watch the segment above or watch it on their website.

I’d also recommend Bold TV in general as something to check out. It’s a great example of innovation and, beyond that, the business philosophy of respect that I advocate for in my books and on this blog. It especially does this in the realm of politics, where respect is especially needed today.

Bold TV is a digitally native news network committed to bipartisan dialogue and innovation for people, businesses, and communities. It was founded in conjunction with Al Roker Entertainment. Bold hosts three one-hour online shows per week (Bold Politics, Bold Life, and Bold Biz), and you can also access the segments (as well as relevant articles) on their website. Their live shows run on their Facebook page on Fridays beginning at 10:00 Eastern.

Bold Politics is co-hosted by Carrie Sheffield and Clay Aiken. Carrie is the founder of Bold, a leading entrepreneur, a political analyst, and had an accomplished career in journalism and finance prior to beginning Bold. Clay, as you may know, should have won the second season of American Idol! (Though Ruben Studdard, who won that year, was great also.) He is also very sharp politically and in 2014 ran for congress in North Carolina’s second congressional district.

Here are two key things to note.

Digitally Native and Innovative

First, Bold TV is digitally native. That is, it has the principles of online communication and the new economy baked into it from the start. Instead of being a meatball sundae of taking an older business model and retrofitting the Internet on top of it, it shows us what a “digital first” media business model looks like. As such, it is at the leading edge of new media programming today.

Bi-Partisan

Second, Bold is bi-partisan and dialogues respectfully about differing viewpoints. It seems like so much political discourse today is carried out with a bitter spirit, and that many news outlets today are profiting from conflict. Regardless of how strongly we feel about things, it does not have to be that way. You can disagree with someone and still respect them. This is how discussion and debate are supposed to proceed.

Bold embodies this, bringing on guests from both sides of the political spectrum. Further, the hosts themselves represent this, as Carrie is a strong conservative and Clay Aiken is on the liberal side.

Instead of seeking to profit from conflict, Bold is based on cooperation—which is a much-overlooked, but central, principle of the new economy. Businesses that seek to profit from conflict are operating according to the old model, and this will not last.

Bold’s style represents a much better way forward in the political discussion of our nation today. Bold TV is worth checking out and tuning in to as a leader in this much better (and, I would argue, more effective and more human) approach.

 

Filed Under: WBN the Book

Catalyst Podcast: How to Get Unstuck

August 17, 2018 by Matt Perman

Last month I was on the Catalyst podcast, discussing How to Get Unstuck. I really enjoyed the interview and hope you find it helpful.

You can listen below or at their website.

Filed Under: Unstuck the Book

Are You Stuck? A Quick Survey to Identify If You Are

May 14, 2018 by Matt Perman

How can you tell if you are stuck? The following is adapted from the “Unstuck Clinic” at the end of chapter 2 of How to Get Unstuck. It can help you know if you are stuck and, if so, in what areas. (Once you’ve identified that, how do you get unstuck? Well, that’s what the book is for!)

The Unstuck Clinic

Note: Writing down your answers to the questions has been scientifically shown to be more effective than just reading the questions or thinking bout the answers in your head.

What Does it Mean to be Stuck?
We get stuck in our productivity when we don’t know where we should be going, don’t know how to get there, or keep encountering obstacles.

Are You Stuck?
What are the biggest ways you are stuck right now? Take a few minutes to reflect, and write them down.

Taking it Deeper: Diagnostic Questions
To help you think this through further, here are a few diagnostic questions grouped into the three areas where we get stuck in our productivity.

Vision

  • Are you accomplishing what God wants you to accomplish?
  • Do you know what God wants you to accomplish?
  • When you accomplish your goals, do you feel they were the right goals?

Execution

  • Do you feel prepared for each day?
  • Are you completing things on time?
  • Are you unhurried?
  • Are you making progress toward your goals?
  • Do you like the approach you have for managing your work?
  • Are you able to get from where you are to where you want to be?
  • Are you able to accomplish the things that matter most to you?

Obstacles

  • How often do you get in the zone in a typical workweek?
  • In your work, are you able to do what you do best every day?

Need help getting unstuck? If so, I wrote How to Get Unstuck to help!

Filed Under: Unstuck the Book

Now Available: The Best Next Steps Application Journal

May 11, 2018 by whatsbestnext



Now available in our online store—a digital application journal to help you advance further in your productivity.

Why did we create this? The hardest part of improving our productivity is consistently applying the right principles and making them ongoing habits. We designed this application journal to address this issue. Research has shown that writing out your answers to exercise questions leads to far greater understanding and application than just reading the material.

So that’s what this journal does. With this short and interactive resource, we walk you through a process of discerning how you can become more effective to help you clarify what your priorities should be and how you can get the right things done. Use it to build a plan that works for you and start applying these principles in your life today.

This PDF resource is available in our online store for $2.

Filed Under: WBN Product News

The Beginning of How to Get Unstuck

May 2, 2018 by Matt Perman

How to Get Unstuck: Breaking Free from Barriers to Your Productivity released yesterday. Here is the beginning of the intro.

If you’ve ever been stuck, you are in good company. Mark Twain got stuck when writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Einstein got stuck when developing the general theory of relativity, and Martin Luther got stuck trying to grasp the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Even the apostle Paul got stuck on his missionary journeys (Acts 27:20; 1 Thessalonians 2:17–18).

We all hate being stuck. But it happens to everyone in various ways—sometimes in big ways and very often in smaller ways. You can even be stuck in multiple ways at once.

You likely are stuck in some way right now. You might feel like you don’t know where you are headed in life, which is certainly one major type of being stuck. Or you might know where you want to go but keep running into obstacles—another way of being stuck.

You might be trying to do something large and important that you just can’t push forward. Or the ride to accomplishing your goals is just plain bumpier than it ought to be because of various “sticking points” in your productivity approach, workplace environment, or time-management tools. You know there are ways to do things more effectively, but you just aren’t sure what they are.

The encouraging and surprising truth is that it’s okay to be stuck. Being stuck can be a mark that you are doing important things, because important things are often hard. And when things are hard, we are likely to get stuck.

Further, God meets us where we are stuck. In fact, it’s when we are stuck that he often meets us most deeply. David often prayed things like,

Rescue me from the mud;
don’t let me sink any deeper!
Save me from those who hate me,
and pull me from these deep waters. (Ps. 69:14 NLT)

Now that’s being stuck.

We’ve all been there, and all is not lost when we are. It’s okay to be stuck. But we don’t want to stay stuck.

None of us enjoys being stuck. And it sometimes puts crucial, important things at risk. There are things we want to do, things we need to do, and things that make a difference in the world that won’t get done if we stay stuck.

The good news is that it is possible to get unstuck and overcome the obstacles to doing great work and getting the right things done. David prayed for deliverance and got unstuck. Paul never became passive, in spite of his many obstacles. Mark Twain finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer after taking a year off to replenish. And Einstein got the help he needed with the math to bring the theory of relativity all the way through to completion. (Yes, Einstein needed help with math! — of a very advanced sort, of course.)

Read the rest of the intro and chapter one, or grab your copy today!

Filed Under: Unstuck the Book

How to Get Unstuck is Now Available!

May 1, 2018 by Matt Perman

It’s May 1, and that means How to Get Unstuck: Breaking Free from Barriers to Your Productivity is now available! Go get your copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, WTS Books, or your local Christian bookstore.

Like What’s Best Next, this book has been in the works for a long time. I’m excited that it is now available and hope it can enable you individually to be more effective for God’s purposes, with more peace of mind, and to build up the church so we can be collectively more effective as well.

What Will This Book Do For You?

As Christians, there is an important tool that we’ve been overlooking for how to do our work and live our lives in a God-centered way. This is the tool of personal effectiveness, or personal productivity.

There are lots of great secular books on productivity, such as Getting Things Done, and lots of Christians have been finding them helpful. But none of these look at the issue from a biblical perspective. And we need to do that for a few reasons:

  1. The gospel affects all of life, and productivity is an issue that affects all of us every day, so we need to see how they relate to one another.
  2. Good productivity practices can be used to amplify our ability to serve God in our work, lives, and the world. We can more effectively use them for that purpose when we look at them within a biblical framework.
  3. God deserves the credit for all good productivity practices, including the ones from common grace that secular thinkers have been articulating, because he is the source of everything that is true and good. So let’s explicitly give him the credit for these things!

There is now a bit more now on the gospel and productivity than there was a few years ago. But we still need more.

In What’s Best Next, I sought to give an overall system for productivity. In How to Get Unstuck, I focus on helping you overcome obstacles to your productivity. The approach dovetails well with What’s Best Next by going deeper into this specific issue; in doing so, it also includes several principles that I wanted to include in WBN but didn’t have room for. (You can start with either book, as they both stand on their own.)

In How to Get Unstuck, you learn:

  • how the urgency addiction is one of the main culprits interfering with our productivity, and how to conquer it
  • that being unstuck is ultimately a positive concept, about flourishing and well-being (shalom), and where we see it in the Scriptures
  • why character, not first techniques, is central to being productivity and how long-term, fundamental change truly happens
  • how our faith and work relate, and why we have often gotten “stuck” in relation to the culture by not understanding this
  • what it means to be a true professional in your work, and how to get there through deliberate practice and preparation
  • why the key to getting more done is to start in the opposite place you might think: with your time, not your tasks
  • how to utilize deep work, the new super power of the knowledge era, to overcome distractions and more than double your productivity
  • and much more

So if you want to get more of the right things done, with greater peace and fulfillment, do this through obstacles, and do it for the advancement of God’s purposes in the world, check out How to Get Unstuck. 

Endorsements

Here are two endorsements:

Perman’s new book on productivity goes beyond the how of effectiveness to the why: Why do anything well? The answer is found in our theology: Excellence, attention, and care are all ways that we leaders love our God and our neighbors. Drawing on the wisdom of business gurus, neuroscientists, and pastors, Perman has provided a resource for all of us who desire to steward our time, talents, and resources better so that we can live out the gospel more faithfully and fully in the time we’ve been given.

— Katelyn Beaty, former managing editor, Christianity Today, author of A Woman’s Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World

Getting stuck is frustrating, disruptive, and unavoidable. Getting stuck is also not the way it is supposed to be, suggests Matt Perman in his new book, How to Get Unstuck. Gleaning the wisdom from the best of the personal-effectiveness gurus, Perman combines common sense and biblical principles to help you get out of the rut that may have become your new normal. This book will help you joyfully bring more flourishing to the communities God has called you to serve.

— Hugh Whelchel, executive director, Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, author of How Then Should We Work? Rediscovering the Biblical Doctrine of Work

User Reviews

Here are a few comments from readers so far:

“I had high expectations for this book because of my love for Matt Perman’s previous book, “What’s Best Next”, and I am so very happy that it didn’t disappoint. I am an avid reader with a significant number of professional / business books on my shelf at home and work, and this is one of the few that I intend to re-read on an annual basis.”

“I found What’s Best Next (Perman’s first book) to be super helpful for me, so I was pretty excited to tear into How to Get Unstuck to continue to grow in the area of personal productivity. Good news…I wasn’t let down at all. Perman’s second book builds off the strengths of What’s Best Next, while addressing a struggle all of us encounter in our productivity: getting stuck.”

“Biblical, brilliant, and beautiful.”

Table of Contents and Sample Chapter

And here are the table of contents and a sample of the book (the introduction plus first chapter).

I’ll be posting more on Unstuck today and this week. But in the meantime, pick up your copy now!

Filed Under: Unstuck the Book

How to Get Unstuck: Table of Contents

May 1, 2018 by Matt Perman

(How to Get Unstuck: Breaking Free from Barriers to Your Productivity is out today! Here is the table of contents. For more details on the book, see the next post.)

Introduction: We All Get Stuck in Some Way

Part 1. The Problem and the Principles: True North

1. How We Get Stuck
2. Flourishing: What it Means to be Unstuck
3. The Unstuck Cycle
4. Recovering Personal Effectiveness as a Force for Good
5. Understanding Urgency and Importance (For Real)
6. Character: The Great Unsticking Force

Part 2. Personal Leadership: The Compass

7. Understand the Power of Vision
8. Be Missional: Understand How Your Faith and Work Relate
9. See Yourself as a Professional (…Sort of)
10. Preparation: Get the Knowledge You Need

Part 3. Personal Management: The Clock

11. Start with Your Time, Not with Your Tasks
12. Set Your Priorities: Make Importance Truly Work
13. Deep Work, Part 1: The New Superpower of Knowledge Work
14. Deep Work, Part 2: Put Deep Work into Your Schedule and Overcome Distractions
15. Renewal: The Power of Preaching to Yourself

Part 4. Special Obstacles: The Laser

16. A Basic Approach to Getting Unstuck from Problems
17. Taking an Adaptive Time Management Approach
18. Building Your Willpower and Growing in Discipline
19. Making Your Workspace Clutter-Free
20. Getting Projects Unstuck
21. Overcoming the Number One Sticking Point for New Leaders

Filed Under: i Productivity Obstacles, Unstuck the Book

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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.

Learn More

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.

Learn more about Matt

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Foundational Posts

3 Questions on Productivity
How to Get Your Email Inbox to Zero Every Day
Productivity is Really About Good Works
Management in Light of the Supremacy of God
The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards in Categories
Business: A Sequel to the Parable of the Good Samaritan
How Do You Love Your Neighbor at Work?

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