Redeeming Your Time: 7 Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present, and Wildly Productive

I always have this feeling that I could be better at working; at simply getting things done. I notice things and tasks that present mental hurdles for me that take me a longer time than I feel necessary to start or complete. I already had on my desk What's Best Next, as I was going to try and go back over that book and start a personal file and think about my time and my new role at church this year. However, I saw this listed on some book of the year list and thought this might seem fresh.

I was glad that I read this book. It was a little like What's Best Next, in that they are both Christian productivity books, but this one wasn't so dense. There were some Biblical foundations and principles in this, but they weren't as heavy, and the practical tips presented in this book seemed more achievable.

The 7 principles in this book are:

1. Start with the Word: we must first know the Author of time, his purposes for the world, and what he has called us to do with the time he has given us.
2. Let Your Yes be Yes: we must ensure that our yes is yes from the smallest to the biggest commitments we make.
3. Dissent from the Kingdom of Noise: we must fight to block out noise and create room for silence, stillness, and reflection.
4. Prioritize Your Yeses: we must decide what matters most and allow those choices to prioritize our commitments.
5. Accept your "Unipresence": we must accept our unipresence and focus on one important thing at a time.
6. Embrace Productive Rest: we must embrace the God-designed rhythms of rest that are counterintuitively productive for our goals and our souls.
7. Eliminate all Hurry:  we must embrace productive busyness while ruthlessly eliminating hurry from our lives.

There is a chapter on each of these principles, and at the end of each chapter are some real practical things to come from this. The book's main strength is the system put forward in organising your work, of which I have tried to implement, and I will comment on what I am actually doing from this book.

The overall framework presented in this book is about managing your tasks, settings expectations for the work the next day by carving out time for that and then executing it in realistic blocks. While that sounds sensible, the tips suggested in this book really help get this workflow off the ground.

There is a need to always have a task app on hand to help collate jobs to do when they arise. The author suggested OmniFocus to help with this. I used to use Asana (as it was useful for collaboration) but now I settle for the simple Microsoft To-Do app as it's free, on Windows and Android and it can integrate with OneNote and Outlook, which are other Microsoft tools my work uses already.

Initially, all the tasks may be scrappy and in one pile. Later they are to be organised better and grouped. Personally, I haven't really managed this step. I already have To-Do categories that I try to enter directly under some category like "Admin", "communication" or a ministry area I am involved in. Sometimes I do make notes on paper in meetings to then (try to) enter in those tasks in To-Do later.

Then once you have your tasks, the idea is that at the end of the day, you do a review and plan what you are going to do tomorrow, blocking them out in your calendar. But when you are filling your calendar, think about "deep work" blocks of time. These can be solid 90-120 minute blocks of time for deep thinking tasks, that you need to do. Separate these blocks with a break for you to recharge. Generally, the idea is to do "deep work" at the start of the day, and then always have a block of time each day for messages (email, SMSes) and then in the afternoon have space for the "shallow and serendipitous". These are tasks that you don't need much thinking space, and you can allow for interruptions.

In your daily review, you look at your calendar app, and in there you run two different calendars on top of each other. What I have done in Outlook is have a green calendar called "Time Budge", where I plan for whatever tasks I want to get done throughout the day, including a block for messages. These are recurring generic blocks of time, mostly called "Deep work", "Break" or "Messages". I then have a second calendar in red which is my actual calendar (this syncs with my personal Google Calendar using Flow), this has my appointments/meetings that are already planned in advance which can't be moved. The idea is that in your daily review, you move your Time Budget blocks around those things that can't be moved. You then label the Time Budge blocks of time for specific things off your task list. (Maybe click the picture for his example of this in the book.) I have found this helpful, even if sometimes I am terrible at budgeting my time for certain tasks. 

While all of that is the practical stuff, there was also some good principles throughout the book about being a good Christian worker. If we agree to something, we should do it, so we should steward our time to actually do it. If our boss asks us to do something, we should obey and be flexible in our current tasks, so that we can serve them. The idea of the sabbath is stressed along with ways we can turn off distractions (phone and social media) and plan for rest times throughout the day. The first chapter in the book is about spending time in God's word at the start of the day and praying through all the work that you need to do. If you have done your daily review the day before, you should know what you are going to do that day. Along with trying to lean on the Bible for some principles, there is also modern research on how people work and concentrate that I found interesting.

Already from Tim Challies, I believe you need to get four tools down to manage your work - notes, emails, calendar and tasks. But in this framework, notes seems to be left a little on the sideline. I think anything you take as a note could maybe be a task - I am not sure.

This year I have started using this method, or really I have tweaked what I was doing with my tasks and have started using the two-calendar system to help me be better at my time management. While zero inbox is the goal every day, I have only really achieved it two or three times this year. Just last Friday I hit it, but that was because I used extra deep work blocks for messages, as I seem to struggle in the email space. I have also noticed I struggle with being proactive in arranging catch ups with people. I sometimes feel my time is already booked with events, planning or admin, and I am forgetting key people I should be meeting with. This isn't necessarily a flaw in the system, just my approach currently seems to be more task or outcome-focused, whereas I really need to remember the personal side of my job.

I found this book quite practical and helpful in thinking about how I go about my work. I also like the realistic tone, admitting there will never be enough time for you to get everything done, but we are to do the best we can with our finite schedule. Unlike, What's Best Next, which really took a few steps back to think harder on what work is, what your goals and mission and values are, this one more was about how to collate and plan the tasks that are required, within a healthy framework of balance, which God has asked of you.