I LOVE a good book on productivity. Not because I am a super organized, productive person. Quite the opposite actually. Discipline, organization, and productivity do not come naturally to me. I have to work really hard at it, and I’m always trying to figure out how people do the things that they do. I was really intrigued hearing about Do More Better by Tim Challies.
This is the first book I’ve read about productivity from a Christian perspective. He starts off by talking about the theology of productivity, which I love. We so often forget how much the things we believe about God affect the way that we live our lives. In this book, Challies walks you through the steps to determine your areas of responsibility and let go of any of the things you don’t need to be doing. So helpful! The rest of the book is about finding the right tools. Challies recommends getting one tool for each of these arenas:
- Task management
- Scheduling
- Information collection
Task Management Tools
He highly recommends Todoist, which I had heard about before but hadn’t really used. I decided to give it a whirl since the free version is so robust. I set it up the way Challies recommends using the “areas of responsibility” I had worked through earlier in the book and wow wow wow, I love it. My productivity skyrocketed after I implemented this tool. Having ALL my tasks in one place where I could easily prioritize the important and the urgent gave me peace of mind and the focus that I was lacking. It also helped me realize that I was biting off way more than I could chew. My frustrations in not getting “enough” done were often because I tried to do too much.
Because I’m the research-obsessed person that I am, I did a fair amount of googling other task management tools as well. Asana, Trello, Google Gasks, and remember the milk all came up a lot. I also considered utilizing the reminders/tasks app in my iPhone as well. The main consideration is that it should be something that’s fairly simple to set up and something that you’ll actually use.
Scheduling Tools
This was a tool I did not need to spend any time implementing. I already have my Google Calendar and my Apple Calendar synced. I love how Google Calendar can pull appointment suggestions from emails. For example, when the veterinarian sends an email with the next appointment, Google automatically adds it as a calendar event. Syncing it with my apple calendar makes it so that I can view those appointments (plus the address and any other info I saved) on any of my devices.
At some point I’d like to start sharing Google Calendars with Charles, but since both of us are home almost 24/7 still, there’s really no need.
Information Collection Tools
The last toolset he recommends is an information collection tool. Reading this chapter inspired me to start using Evernote again. I used it a lot in wedding planning, but haven’t used it since. I created a new free account to start fresh and plan to start saving things like tax documents, car documents, etc., there. These are things that I’ve previously saved on my computer, which I backup about twice a year. The benefit of saving them in Evernote instead is that it’ll give me more labeling and search options, but also be a more secure backup and allow me to access them from any device. Win win win.
The thing I didn’t love about this book
One thing that was incredibly distracting for me in what was overall a great book was the author’s examples in regards to women’s productivity. It was evident that he comes from a strong traditional, complementarian background. All of his examples of women involved them doing tasks at home, for their husbands, or for their children, whereas the examples he had of men’s productivity varied greatly. Even if I strongly believed in traditional gender roles, these examples would still come across as tone-deaf. What about women who aren’t married and don’t have kids? What about women who ARE married and do have kids but also lead small groups, start a book club, run a ministry, work outside the home in order to pay the bills, and so on.
I debated sharing this as an issue, as the book isn’t actually about gender roles. In the end, I decided to share because I found this distracting and it left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. That being said, I think it’s a fantastic book to read, particularly if you feel like your life is missing the organizational frameworks necessary to keep track of tasks, appointments, and important information.
Do you have these systems set up?
I’d love to hear! Let’s discuss in the comments!
