What's Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done

by Matt Perman

Reduce. After creating this structure, often you’ll find that making everything fit is the biggest obstacle. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve architected wrong; it just means you need to reduce. You need to know what’s most important (define), weave it into your life (architect), and then get rid of the rest (reduce). But you don’t get rid of the rest by simply letting balls drop. Rather, you do it by creating systems and using tactics that ultimately expand your capacity. This brings us into the realm of the core practices of day-to-day time management, including delegating, eliminating, automating, and deferring (the DEAD process we will learn), as well as how to turn time killers back on themselves by harnessing them rather than being defeated by them. The essence of reducing can be summarized this way: Reduce on the basis of what’s most important, not on the basis of misguided notions of living a minimalistic life, and do this by implementing systems that enable you to ultimately expand your capacity overall.