As a principle of love is the main principle in the heart of a real Christian, so the labour of love is the main business in the Christian life.
—Jonathan Edwards
Happy Valentine’s Day!
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
Ideas don’t happen because they are great—or by accident. The misconception that great ideas inevitably lead to success has prevailed for too long. . . . Creative people are known for winging it: improvising and acting on intuition is, in some way, the haloed essence of what we do and who we are. However, when we closely analyze how the most successful and productive creatives, entrepreneurs, and business people truly make ideas happen, it turns out that “having the idea” is just a small part of the process, perhaps only 1 percent of the journey.
—Scott Belsky
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
To be reasonably effective it is not enough for the individual to be intelligent, to work hard or to be knowledgeable. Effectiveness is something separate, something different.
—Peter Drucker
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
Brilliant insight, hard work, and good intentions are not enough. Effectiveness is a distinct skill that must be learned. Some people are more inclined to it than others, and everyone is naturally built to be capable of effectiveness, but effectiveness is something we learn—like reading.
—Matt Perman
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
In more than fifty years of consulting, Peter Drucker pointed out that he never found a “natural,” someone who is instinctively effective. Every effective person he encountered—and as perhaps the greatest consultant and business thinker of the twentieth century, that’s a lot—had to work at becoming effective.
—Matt Perman
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
Most of us haven’t paid sufficient attention to the skill of defining our work clearly. This is why it so often feels like our workdays never stop. When you don’t have your work clearly defined, there can never be any finish point.
—Matt Perman
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
The knowledge worker cannot be supervised closely or in detail. He can only be helped. But he must direct himself, and he must direct himself toward performance and contribution, that is, effectiveness.
—Peter Drucker
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
If only every Christian in the Church today were living the Sermon on the Mount, the great revival for which we are praying and longing would already have started.
—Martyn Lloyd-Jones
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
Generosity is at the heart of true productivity in all areas of life. This is what the Scriptures teach and, interestingly, what the best business thinkers are also showing. Further, a life of doing good for others is actually the most exciting life, for God calls us to find ways of doing good with a sense of creativity, competence, and adventure.
—Matt Perman
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
The essence of GDP [Gospel-Driven Productivity] is this: We are to use all that we have, in all areas of life, for the good of others, to the glory of God—and that this is the most exciting life. To be a gospel-driven Christian means to be on the lookout to do good for others to the glory of God, in all areas of life, and to do this with creativity and competence. Further, being gospel-driven also means knowing how to get things done so that we can serve others in a way that really helps, in all areas of life, without making ourselves miserable in the process through overload, overwhelm, and hard-to-keep-up systems. In other words, we are to put productivity practices and tools in the service of God’s purpose for us, which is that we do good for others, in all areas of life, to his glory.
—Matt Perman
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
