Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity

by Tim Challies

Text messages provide a welcome distraction from deep thinking,

Busyness may make you feel good about yourself and give the illusion of getting things done, but it probably just means that you are directing too little attention in too many directions, that you are prioritizing all the wrong things, and that your productivity is suffering.

Busyness and laziness are both issues that arise from within. They are deficiencies in character that then work themselves out in our lives.

whatever keeps you from doing good to others is a problem—a serious problem. It is a problem that keeps you from doing the very work God has called you to in the short time he gives you here on earth.

This truth means that productivity is not just about what you do in the workplace. It is not just about your success in the one task that consumes the greatest part of your time and attention each week. It is about all of life. It is about your personal life, your family life, your church life, and everything else.

Displaying discipline and self-control in one area shores it up in others; conversely, neglecting discipline and self-control in any major area makes it all the more difficult to emphasize it in others. There can be a kind of chain reaction that leads to greater order or greater chaos.

There are so many things we could do in our lives and in any given moment, but so few we actually can do. There are fewer still we can do with excellence. So much of life involves attempting to strike the right balance between competing demands.

It is far better to dedicate lots of attention to those areas in which you are particularly talented or gifted than it is to dedicate minimal attention to the many areas you are not.

“Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”5 What are those things that really matter in your life?

The key to a productive and contented life is “planned neglect”—knowing what not to do and being content with saying no to truly good, sometimes fantastic, opportunities. This happens only when you realize how truly limited you are, that you must steward your little life, and that of all the best things to do on the planet, God wants you to do only a miniscule number.

At this point I am going to introduce an important organizing principle that you will return to again and again. This principle extends to any area of life but is especially helpful in organizing your productivity system. Here it is: a home for everything, and like goes with like.

begin each of your tasks with a verb followed by a colon. This pattern brings at least two benefits. First, it ensures that you are only adding actions to Todoist and not using it as a place to hold information. Second, it makes it easy to skim your list of tasks to find ones that require the same kind of action (e.g. Buy, Write, Email, Call).

Whenever you think of a task you must do in the future or would like to consider doing in the future, add it to Todoist. When you are in a meeting and a task or project is assigned to you, add it immediately. When you spot an item you need to fix or a product you need to buy, add a task to Todoist. Add tasks as soon as you think of them, and add them without restraint.

Even if you are unsure if you will actually need to take action, add it now and make a decision about it later. Do not convince yourself that you will remember the task later that day or the next day. Whatever it is, get it out of your head and into Todoist.

You need to use those times of high motivation to build habits and to embed those habits in a system. That way, when motivation wanes, the system will keep you going.

“To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.”10 The person who lives with an awareness of God’s presence, who lives under God’s authority, and who longs to bring God glory is the person who will be highly motivated to do more good—to do the most good for other people. Action:

It needs consistent maintenance if it is to continue functioning smoothly. You need to free yourself from thinking that organizing your life is a one-shot deal. Far from it. Productivity is not a system you set up and then forget about, but something that demands dedicated attention on a regular basis. It is not something you configure one time and finalize, but something you need to constantly refine.

Your life is undoubtedly complicated and there is far more to it than you can easily retain in your brain. In many cases it is wise to outsource some of the thoughts you need to remember to that very same tool. I have found no better way of maintaining my system than to work through a short checklist each week. This list helps me ensure that the system is functioning properly. It calls me back to the system when I have drifted and it takes care of the routine maintenance that ensures each part is working just as it should. This checklist is what I call my weekly review.

No matter how organized you are, how together your system is, how careful you are about processing your inbox, making a task list, and working your calendar, if you don’t stop every now and again to look at the “big picture,” you’re going to get overwhelmed. You end up simply responding to what’s thrown at you, instead of proactively creating the conditions of your life.

Stop multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is rarely effective and almost never leads to increased productivity. Whenever possible choose a task, take it to completion, and then move on to the next one.

Get accountability. Have someone check in with you on a regular basis (perhaps during a team meeting) to ask if you are keeping up with your productivity system. Having something or someone outside the system prompting you to maintain the system will help keep you going when motivation is low.

Exercise. I know it seems counterintuitive, but sometimes the best thing you can do for productivity is to stop trying to be so productive and to spend some time exercising. Productivity is about all of life and requires all of your body and mind. Make sure you make time to get fit and to stay fit.