Effective Faith

There is an increasing trend in productivity applications — reporting. On the whole this is a really good. Just recently, ToDoist introduced a new reporting section into their side bar. Open it up and it shows you what you have done today or what others in your team have completed. This is actually kind of helpful so I am thankful for it. But most apps include some kind of function or feature…

Today I am writing an open letter to myself.  This post is written to me and everything in it is about me.  You see I want to be more more productive.  I want to be more present.  I am the one who desires to become a more effective person in life.  So, I am writing a letter to tell myself what to do.  So you want to be more effective…..? GO to bed! I hope that perhaps some others of you find…

Determining our focus is all very well.  It looks good on paper to have something written out that tells us what actually matters in life.  It feels like something to be proud of that we have established our ‘north star’ firmly in the sky to guide us.  BUT – how does that help us during the day when the bright lights of emails and meetings and chat messages and crying children and even our own…

Podcasts are, I think a wonderful thing.  I am planning some content on the how’s and why’s of listening to them but for today’s short, I wanted to just list my top five and give a short promo for each and explain how they resonate with and impact me. The Your Time, Your Way Podcast – Carl Pullein This used to be called The Working with podcast and personally that name was less problematic for…

Holiness. Holiness is one of those words we understand, but are still kind of confused about.  We know it means to be ‘set apart’ in some way.  We know it means to be set apart for God in particular.  But, if you ask yourself the question, what does it actually mean for a Christian to be Holy…..I think often our answers can be a bit vague and ill defined.  Ask 100 people and you will get 100…

Life is short…..so live for today.  That’s catchphrase you often hear.  But I don’t like it.  Life is short….carpe diem!  Seize the day or seize the moment.  Better…but not great.  Life is short…..so make every shot count.  This I prefer.  This I like.  The problem with the first two is that they direct your gaze to consider now and only now.  If that is your only horizon and your only concern,…

Our whole life is an act of faith. “I wish I had your faith….” ………….. “I make decisions based on evidence and not on faith”.  “Faith means making choices with a lack of or even in spite of the evidence.” Have you ever heard these words, or perhaps even spoken them?  I have heard them before, I have even spoken a version of them before.  I vividly remember telling a friend of mine that I thought…

The Buffet Problem The buffet problem.  The heart of the buffet problem is the issue of choice.  The more the options abound, the harder making choices becomes.   So, on a menu you will often have a multitude of different options.  The longer the menu, the harder the choice.  But choose you must and choose you do.  A buffet is different….. Some years back I went on a number of cruise…

Every single one of us at some point in our life will start to feel like things are just getting messy.  We are just not on top of life the way we want to be. When that happens – we need to press the reset button.  But – how do you actually do that? We are now 3 weeks into January.  Perhaps you have realised that you are not as organised as you would like to be.  Be honest…..it all feels like a…

Four years ago August Bradley burst onto the YouTube screen and took the Notion (& productivity) community by storm.  In a short space of time he unleashed an plethora of videos providing viewers with a detailed and step by step guide to a new system that he called PPV.  BUT – was this worth the hype?  I have to say – I love the idea behind the name of this system.  Every system under the sun…

I decided to spend a bit of time over my recent break playing around with an app called Tana.  I have heard a lot of good things about it wanted to see what all of the fuss was about.  So, here are my first impressions of the app. Please note, this is not a deep dive nor is it an in depth review of all the features and functions.  I used the app for a couple of hours and went through their…

Are you feeling disorganised and if all you need to manage in life is getting on top of you?  If so then I have a warning for you.  You might search online and unearth a plethora of different tips, advice, systems and templates – all designed to help you be more organised and productive.  But, here is my warning……productivity is not an end in itself. Productivity is not an end in itself.  Have…

Systems, tools and planning are all good, but we too often ignore the huge power our physical health can have. Today we start to consider the massive topic of Physical Health & Your Effectiveness. Sluggishness. Brain fog. The 3 o’ clock slump! Are these things that effect you?  These are all things that affect me, most of every day. They rob us of our focus.  They rob us of our…

Many years ago, I came across a very simple principle.  It was found in perhaps the first series of blog posts I had ever read about this whole issue of productivity.  It is a principle that I now live by.  I do not set arbitrary deadlines.  Not ever.  Many people do though and so I am writing this to provide my logic as you think through the question – are arbitrary deadlines helpful? What is a…

A different kind of post and a personal reflection.

Lately I’ve been thinking (and yes – it did hurt), Christians in the West are facing a threat the likes of which we have not seen in many of our lifetimes.  We face a culture change around us that has begun the process of turning the Christian believer from the moral majority to the immoral minority.  By this, I mean that the culture around us has changed from holding largely ‘christianised’…

Sometimes, the most effective use of your time is to NOT use it productively.  One my most loved movies is called Mystery Men.  It’s a superhero movie – kind of.  They all have powers but a bit different.  There is the Invisible Boy, who has the power to be invisible, but only if no one is looking.  As soon as someone looks at him, he becomes visible again.  Another hero is The Sphynx.  His power…

I’ve been circling around something for a long time in a lot of my content.  In blog posts I have talked about limits that we have.  Episodes of the podcast have detailed some of the causes of toxic productivity, as I see them.  I have highlighted the need to allow for flexibility as we cannot always predict what will happen.  And, my favourite line, most of plan our days as if we are Superman…