I need a vacation. Over the years I’ve learned to identify the signs. I’ve learned to spot the difficulty in getting out of bed, the lack of creativity I bring to my vocation, the extra cup of coffee I find myself craving in mid-afternoon. I enjoy the blessing of being able to do what I…
I am a dutiful person who is usually happy enough to carry out life’s basic responsibilities. I am a husband with responsibilities toward my wife, a father with responsibilities toward my children, a pastor with responsibilities toward my congregation, a neighbor with responsibilities toward the people who live around me. My success as a husband,…
“I’m not afraid of failure. I’m afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.” You may recognize those words as belonging to the great missionary William Carey who was giving voice to thoughts many of us have had at one time or another. There are a lot of things in life we could do, there…
We don’t accomplish much in life apart from self-discipline. Discipline plays an especially important role in life’s difficult or full-out unpleasant tasks, in those things we know we ought to do but struggle to accomplish. We discipline ourselves to get exercise and lose weight. We discipline ourselves to update the family budget on a regular…
When I look back on life, one of my real regrets is not making more of my college experience. Those years offered unique opportunities to grow in knowledge and wisdom but also to grow in character and godliness. Unfortunately, I was unfocused and immature. I wasted many golden opportunities and excelled only at euchre and…
Of all the gifts God gives us, few are more precious and few are more fleeting than the gift of time. Most of us feel sharp twinges of regret when we look at the way we’ve used or abused the time that has been given to us. There are so many forces competing for it,…
It is good to be zealous—far better certainly than being complacent. I have often been dismayed at my own lack of zeal for the Lord and the lack of zeal of so many Western Christians. And yet even something as good as zeal can go wrong when it begins to get muddled up with the…
I love tools. I especially love good tools. I love to explore different tools, to try them, and to choose the ones that do the job the best. In my case, the tools I use tend to be related to writing and publishing and they come in both hardware and software varieties. I outlined my…
We hear endless talk about productivity. It is the major focus of many of the most popular blogs out there. The bestseller lists may as well have a category dedicated to it. But what if we’ve gotten productivity wrong? What if it isn’t quite what we’ve made it out to be? What if it’s actually…
As you may already know, I plan to begin 2016 with a ten-day focus on productivity. I would love to have you join me and the several thousand people who have signed up for this program I’m calling 10 Days of Productivity. (Have you heard enough already? Sign up here.) As you know, I recently…
’Tis the season to begin to consider those annual New Year’s resolutions. ’Tis the season to first evaluate whether such resolutions are a good idea or a bad one. Speaking personally, I am a believer in New Year’s resolutions. I believe our lives benefit when we take time to think, evaluate, and dream a little,…
I plan to begin 2016 with 10 days of productivity, and I would love to have you join me. Let me tell you how and why you may want to join this free little program I'm calling (you guessed it!) 10 Days of Productivity. (Heard enough already? Sign up here.) As you know, I recently…
Today is the day! My new book Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity is now available. This is a unique book on productivity and one that I believe will prove helpful to anyone who reads it. In fact, the book begins with these words: “I believe this book can improve your life.” And,…
I am really excited to announce that one week from today you will be able to purchase my new book Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity. I wrote this book because I believe God calls each one of us to emphasize productivity in our lives. He calls each of us to emphasize a…
I imagine you have read Douglas Adams’ quip before: “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” It’s funny because we can all identify with it. We all know the panic of approaching deadlines, the pain of watching them fly on by, the guilt of explaining why we missed…
You have probably heard the saying before: A clean house is a sign of a wasted life. Whatever else the phrase means, it expresses some of the frustration and the sense of futility that attends life in this world. I thought of that saying when I spotted this proverb: “Where there are no oxen, the…
We have all heard the statistics: 50% of people make some kind of new year’s resolution, but 88% of those resolutions ultimately fail. That is more than a little discouraging. But I still believe in new year’s resolutions. I believe in them as a convenient opportunity to evaluate life and to make choices about living…
The trouble with a series on productivity is that it can just keep going forever. Our work is never complete and we never fully master the best use of our time and opportunities. Our God-given calling to do good to others does not end until our lives end. Until we take that final breath, we…
This series on productivity is beginning to reach its end. But before it winds down, I have just a couple more topics to cover, and one of them is the all-important weekly review. I have written at length about the value of a system. Systems are wonderful and powerful, but require some maintenance in order…
Today I am continuing this series on Christians and productivity. I have said that productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God, and to this point I have suggested many different ways of doing that (You can see a series round-up at…