Podcasts about redeeming productivity newsletter

In this episode, we're talking about the essential habit of daily Bible reading. I attempt to present the most convincing arguments for why you you need to make this habit part of your life. Learn more about supporting Redeeming Productivity: https://redeemingproductivity.com/about/#support Subscribe on your favorite platform: https://link.chtbl.com/redeemingprod Check out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/

In this episode, we're talking about the essential habit of daily Bible reading. I attempt to present the most convincing arguments for why you you need to make this habit part of your life. Learn more about supporting Redeeming Productivity: https://www.redeemingproductivity.com/about/#support Subscribe on your favorite platform: https://link.chtbl.com/redeemingprod Check out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://www.redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/

In this episode of Redeeming Productivity, I talk about the different kinds of rest we need and how to make each of them a habit so we don't burn out. LINKS The real reason why we are tired and what to do about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGNN4EPJzGkLearn more about supporting Redeeming Productivity: https://redeemingproductivity.com/about/#supportSubscribe on your favorite platform: https://link.chtbl.com/redeemingprodCheck out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/

In this episode, I talk to Joe Barnard of Cross Training Ministries about the little habits that lead to big transformation for Christians. LINKS Joe's Ministry: https://www.menneedhelp.org/https://www.xtrainingministries.com/Joe's Book, The Way Forward: https://amzn.to/3pSKyXT Previous episode with Joe: https://redeemingproductivity.com/podcast/pursuing-maturity-with-joe-barnard/ ???? Learn more about supporting Redeeming Productivity: https://redeemingproductivity.com/about/#support ????Subscribe on your favorite platform: https://link.chtbl.com/redeemingprod ☀️ Check out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/ ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/

Every Christian should make a regular practice of memorizing passages from the Bible. Here's why and some strategies and resources to help you get started. LINKS Scripture Memorization Resources: https://redeemingproductivity.com/memorizing-scripture/ ????Subscribe on your favorite platform: https://link.chtbl.com/redeemingprod ☀️ Check out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/ ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/ SHOW NOTES 0:00 Welcome| 2:19 Why Is It Essential? 5:44 How It's a Habit 10:04 Strategies for Scripture Memorization 12:08 What Verses Should You Memorize? 14:47 Scripture Memorization Resources 29:18 Conclusion

Too many believers flit through life without a plan wondering why we don't see growth or success in our endeavors. For many of us the problem is that we don't look ahead; we don't make planning a habit. LINKS ???? Learn more about supporting Redeeming Productivity: https://redeemingproductivity.com/about/#support ????Subscribe on your favorite platform: https://link.chtbl.com/redeemingprod ☀️ Check out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/ ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/ SHOW NOTES 1:13 - Planning Is Important for Christians 2:21 - Why Planning Is an Essential Habit 7:51 - Benefits of Planning 12:26 - Planning is Good Stewardship 16:32 - Pitfalls of Planning 22:10 - You're not in Control 28:01 - Conclusion

For some reason just about every Christian struggles to pray. In this episode Reagan discusses why that is, and offers some very simple steps for how you can ensure that you're daily doing this essential practice of every productive Christian. LINKS ???? Learn more about supporting Redeeming Productivity: https://redeemingproductivity.com/about/#support ????Subscribe on your favorite platform: https://link.chtbl.com/redeemingprod ☀️ Check out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/ ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/ SHOW NOTES 4:02 - What is prayer? 5:06 - Why prayer is essential 6:05 - The habit of prayer 13:05 - Strategies for prayer 19:18 - Replacing bad habits with prayer 24:42 - Conclusion

This first episode introduces Season 1: Essential Habits of the Productive Christian, and in it Reagan looks at the specific instructions the Bible gives for how Christians are to eliminate bad habits and cultivate good ones. LINKS ????Subscribe on your favorite platform: https://link.chtbl.com/redeemingprod ☀️ Check out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/ ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/ SHOW NOTES 4:04 - A new format 5:34 - The definition of habits 15:07 - The mindset of habits 20:54 - The identity of habits 30:39 - The power of habits 39:01 - The practice of habits 45:59 - Conclusion

In this episode, I talk about how morning routines are the key to building lasting habits. I also announce the release of my brand new course, POWER Mornings. Check out my course on morning routines, POWER Mornings! https://redeemingproductivity.com/power-mornings/ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter: https://newsletter.redeemingproductivity.com/ If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content: https://www.patreon.com/redeemingprod Show Notes: 5:12 – Why you need a morning routine6:24 - Morning Routines Create Consistent Habits8:49 - Morning Routines Promote Peacefulness11:18 - Morning Routines Transform You15:15 - How to Start a Morning Routine16:58 - How to Get POWER Mornings19:13 - Conclusion and Updates

Often when it comes to productivity we want to immediately jump to apps, systems, and life hacks. But without the proper foundation, those tools are useless. In this episode, we discuss the starting point for how believers should approach managing our lives for God's glory. Welcome to Christian productivity 101. ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

Weekly reviews are one of the best tools to keep us on track toward our goals, but they are also the easiest to neglect when we get busy. In this episode, I talk about weekly reviews, why they are so important for productive believers, and some suggestions on what to include in your review. Show notes: 9:49 - What is a weekly review15:06 - Elements of a weekly review29:09 - What day is best?32:40 - Conclusion More from Redeeming Productivity: ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter and get my free morning routine planner. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting the show on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

Walking is the free miracle drug that nobody takes. In this episode, I talk about some of the productivity benefits of taking a daily walk. Show notes: 7:24 - Benefits of walking17:54 - Ways to walk more20:04 - Conclusion More from Redeeming Productivity: ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter and get my free morning routine planner. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting the show on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

There's a term you've probably been hearing everywhere over the last few years: Self-care. Is self-care something Christians should practice or is it really just sinful self-indulgence? Show notes: 5:04 - History of the term self-care12:07 - So why is this phrase so polarizing among Christians?17:09 - We need balance in our lives20:41 - Self-care doesn't have self-indulgent26:28 - Often the best self-care is self-sacrifice32:29 - Conclusion For more from Redeeming Productivity: ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter and get my free morning routine planner. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting the show on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

Dale Partridge created several successful businesses before moving into full time ministry. In this episode, we discuss how Christians ought to think about success, biblical house churches, and Dale's own personal productivity practices. Dale is the Founder and President of Relearn.org, a digital ministry committed to strengthening biblical and theological literacy in the church. He is also the author of several Christians books, the host of the Real Christianity podcast, and an elder and teaching pastor at the local house church in which he serves. Show notes: 5:45 - How Christians should think about success12:44 - Biblical house churches28:25 - Dale's productivity practices Links mentioned on the show: Get more from Dale at Relearn.orgReformation SeminaryReal Christianity PodcastFollow Dale on Twitter For more from Redeeming Productivity: ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting the show on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

Imagine if individuals partnered with their churches to reach the online world for Christ. What might that look like? ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Read More Than Influencers. Show Notes: 0:00 Welcome5:04 The opportunity gap11:17 How the apostles would use the internet19:03 Online ministry is missions20:50 How to get started

In this episode, I outline the steps I'm taking to manage my tasks and time so that I stay productive now that I'm working for myself. Links: ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. Things 3 - https://culturedcode.com/things/ Drafts - https://getdrafts.com/ Show Notes: 0:00 – Welcome2:04 - Why you need a plan3:59 - Start work early5:26 - Keeping the goals in front of me6:13 - The brain dump8:10 - Clarify, organize, and reflect12:39 - Reminders for everything18:37 - Hide the phone20:09 - When you hit a wall, take a walk22:06 - Conclusion

Most modern people spend a lot of time trying to avoid thinking about death. Many want to pretend it doesn't exist at all. But for Christians, thinking about our inevitable demise can be one of the best ways to get inspired to tackle the day's work. Let's talk about getting morbid to get motivated. ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 Welcome3:27 Living for Your Legacy9:48 Christians Don't Fear Death18:14 Having Confidence in How It Ends, Gives Us Confidence in the Present23:00 Conclusion

“Do what you love” is a common piece of advice. But is it something Christians should follow? Plus, a very big announcement. ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Links Mentioned on the Show: Ask Pastor John: Should I Ever Pursue My Dreams?3 Lies Money Tells Timestamps: 0:00 Welcome 0:49 A BIG Announcement 5:35 Pursing Your Dreams 10:47 Obedience & Happiness are Unlikely Bedfellows 17:45 Doing Something Because It Will Make Me More Money is Wrong 22:33 The Will of God for My Life Is a Secret to Be Cracked 30:25 Conclusion

If you struggle to make decisions, or feel stuck between two goals, that may be a sign of a bigger issue. It may actually be a sin issue. Let's talk about indecision and double-mindedness. ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Episode about the fear of man: Episode #58 — Overcoming the Fear of Other People's OpinionsUndone by Indecision: How the Fear of Man Paralyzes Us | Desiring GodBook on Willpower: https://amzn.to/3pBHCgB Show Notes: 0:00 Intro3:02 An epiphany13:05 Why do we do this to ourselves?16:26 We're talking about double-mindedness24:06 Our single-minded purpose31:35 Indecisive people are ineffective people32:34 Conclusion

The self-improvement and personal productivity industry is massive. It's worth well over $10 billion a year. At any given moment many of the books on the best sellers list are personal development books. And many of the best selling books of all time are books about personal productivity or self-improvement. People are looking for answers. But can the personal productivity provide them? Or has it failed to deliver on its promises? Has the personal productivity movement failed us? ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 Welcome1:53 Why this question matters7:29 Personal productivity cannot give you peace11:31 Personal productivity cannot give you meaning17:30 Conclusion Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

Risk is part of life. Every time we lace up our shoes and leave the house, we are taking on some level of risk. We could be humiliated, we could be robbed, we could even die. But if we are to live faithfully or do anything useful with our lives we need to get comfortable with risk. ▶️ Watch on YouTube: How to Take Sermon Notes ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 Welcome5:08 1. This World Is Terrified of Risk8:08 2. We Are Terrible at Calculating Risk13:01 3. Risk is the Pathway to Reward17:28 4. Christians Must Learn to Tolerate More Risk24:57 5. Risks Taken on Principle for God & His Glory Are No Risk at All28:58 - Outro Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

A lot of times we think that be more productive, we need to add things to our lives. Another habit, another app, a new routine, etc. But, actually, the very opposite is true. If you want to add to your productivity, the best place to start is by subtracting things from your life. ✉️ Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 - Welcome2:10 - What is via negativa?9:04 - Why does via negativa work?15:19 - Is it biblical?19:33 - How to effectively employ via negativa in your life33:43 - Keep it simple & a challenge34:34 - Conclusion

We are all optimizing our lives for something, health, money, relationships, etc. But as we try to become more productive, the smartest thing to optimize for is eternal reward. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 Welcome0:16 Everyone optimizes for something2:06 Some people optimize for the wrong things3:51 What will you spend all that redeemed time on?6:21 It's the same thing as walking by faith8:17 Seeking eternal reward is the best way to glorify God12:49 Personal productivity is just plain old faithfulness14:64 Show up every day16:19 Conclusion Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

It's a New Year. Maybe you made some resolutions. But were they all about you or all about Jesus? Let's talk about how you can make sure the goals you set for 2021 are aimed at glorifying God. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 Welcome5:03 Rethink your resolutions8:08 Reframe your resolutions13:04 Recommit to your resolutions17:36 Make 2021 the best year yet19:09 Conclusion Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

As we look ahead to a new year, I took some time to look back at what the Lord has taught me in the previous one. This episode is admittedly a bit self-indulgent, but hopefully, it will spark some ideas for you. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes 0:00 - Intro1:13 - 1. Family trumps nearly everything else.4:02 - 2. You can't do it all well.5:58 - 3. You and you alone are responsible for your priorities.8:19 - 4. Politics do matter.10:30 - 5. Stop being scared and start speaking up.13:16 - 6. If not now then when?16:21 - 7. The natural world is marvelous up close.19:23 - Conclusion Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

A victimhood mindset is antithetical to the gospel and to personal productivity. People who think of themselves as victims are trapped in a prison of their own mind, always waiting for someone to come save them. If you adopt a victimhood mindset, you will never get anywhere. This self-pitying mind trap must be destroyed whenever it rears its ugly head. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes 0:00 - Intro7:45 - Defining the Victim Mindset10:40 - A Victim Mindset is Not the Same as Being a Victim12:22 - The 4 Features of a Victim Mindset16:16 - A Victim Mindset is Antithetical to the Gospel18:14 - A Mindset of Victimhood is Cancerous at the Macro Level22:04 - A Mindset of Victimhood is Cancerous to Personal Productivity26:36 - How to Slay a Victim Mentality31:39 - Practical Strategies for Fighting a Victim Mentality33:32 - Conclusion Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

Christians are to strive for quality in all that we do, but it's not always possible to do everything with excellence. So, how do we decide where to skimp? Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 2:21 – What is Excellence?4:42 – We Should Do Everything with Excellence, But We Can't7:21 - God Defines Excellence11:47 - Quality Should Be Our Default14:38 - When to Do Less Than Excellent Work17:22 - Get Your Heart Right and Quality Will Come Naturally19:47 - Ask the Lord for Help Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

Here are 8 practical strategies to help you build discipline in your life. Links Read this as an article, 8 Strategies for Developing Christ-Honoring Self-DisciplineListen to part one: RPS #61 — You Need to Learn DisciplineSign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 3:08 – 1. Remember that maturity does not come over night.6:22 – 2. Don't let emotions in the driver's seat.8:36 – 3. Start by disciplining your mind with the truth.11:23 – 4. Strive to have discipline mature into habit.13:27 – 5. Remember that discipline always requires sacrifice.15:52 – 6. Build on habits that are already working.18:02 – 7. Harness waves of motivation to create system that last.22:05 – 8. Always do the right thing, the first time, no matter how small.24:12 – Conclusion Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

Summary Discipline is a rare commodity. In business, those who have it succeed consistently, those who don't just get by or get lucky. For Christians, however, discipline is a necessity. But what is discipline, why do we need it, and how can we learn it? Links Read this as an article, Self-Discipline Is the Gateway to Christian Maturity.Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 – Welcome5:22 – What is Discipline?11:36 – Why You Need Discipline22:32 – Teasing Practical Steps in the Next Episode Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

Do you ever have those days where you come home and think, "that was a really productive day"? Imagine if you could make every day feel productive and let that momentum carry you through, not just days, but weeks of productive work. Links My new employer, Not the Bee.Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 – Welcome2:57 – The Problem7:06 - Closing the Loops9:39 - Make a Plan to Finish the Right Tasks12:07 - How to Write a Book17:23 - Principles for Breaking Your Projects Down24:31 - Creating Reusable Project Templates25:46 - My Process for Writing a Blog Article29:20 - Conclusion Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

Your outlook on life is one of the biggest factors in deciding the quality and success of your work. But should Christians be optimists? And what does biblically-based optimism even look like? Links My new job: Not the Bee.Read the post this episode is based on, "Should I Be Optimistic?" on The Master's Seminary blog.Listen to my testimony.Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 – Welcome2:18 – Optimism vs. Pessimism3:20 – The Right Kind of Optimist5:16 – Evangelical Eeyores7:52 – Every Believer Should Be an Optimist10:19 – Reasonably Happy12:53 – Eternally Optimistic16:27 – Joyfully Long-Suffering17:17 – More Than a Personality Trait19:17 – Optimism Is True and It Gets Results22:18 – Conclusion Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

Where would you be today if you weren't so afraid of other people's opinions? That's the question that drove me to look for biblical answers to my fear of man. In this episode, we discuss how destructive living in the fear of others can be to our lives and personal productivity, and how Scripture provides a way out of this snare. I also share a big life update. Links How to Stop Being Afraid of People, So You Can Start Getting Stuff DoneEp. 12 - Interview with Adam Ford, Creator of The Babylon BeeSign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Show Notes: 0:00 - Welcome, and Major Life Update4:16 - Why You Should Fear the Fear of Man8:41 - How to Attack the Fear of Man12:12 - What Fear of Man Does to Us14:01 - The Fear of Man Is Beatable16:58 - Rightly Ordered Fears20:02 - First, Fear God24:25 - Second, Love People28:43 - Outro Transcript Read and listen via a fully-interactive transcript of this episode.

No matter how well we plan, organize, and delegate, sometimes we drop the ball. Sometimes we let people down. Sometimes we fail to live up to our commitments. And sometimes we make matters worse by failing to communicate. This can lead to broken trust and people losing respect for you. So, how do we drop the ball gracefully? Today I'm going to give you five ways. Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction 03:10 - Why we drop the ball 07:33 - 1. Don't Overcommit to Begin With 10:27 - 2. Develop a System to Track Your Commitments 12:11 - 3. Communicate Early 15:30 - 4. Be 100% Honest 20:47 - 5. Ask for Forgiveness 23:45 - 6. Learn from Your Mistakes 25:56 - Believe the gospel when we drop the ball Links Getting Things Done by David AllenSign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Transcript Welcome to the redeeming productivity show. This is the podcast that helps Christians get more done and get it done like Christians. And I'm your host, Reagan Rose. Well, I'm here this is Episode 56. And I'm sitting here I got a ice cold Lacroix. Well, this is a Kroger brand. So, seltzer water, zero calories, naturally flavored lemon, listen to this. Just went all over my computer. It's okay. It's okay. Just a few droplets. Well, got another episode for you. So we're gonna be talking today about the art of gracefully dropping the ball, how to let people down without losing their respect. Ooh, intriguing title. I know. I wrote it. And so here's the deal. No matter how well you plan, no matter how well you organize, no matter how well you delegate, sometimes you drop the ball. Sometimes you let people down. Sometimes you fail to live up to your commitments and your promises. But sometimes, talking to myself here, we can make matters worse, when we fail to communicate when those things happen. And this can lead to broken trust can lead to people losing respect for you. And the question is, how do we drop the ball gracefully? Well, today, I'm going to give you five ways that you can drop the ball gracefully, and not lose people's respect, not lose their trust, when you have to break a commitment. So we'll talk about that in just a second. Before we do just a quick plug for the newsletter, if you don't get my bi weekly newsletter, you should it on Wednesdays I talk about things that have come out on the blog about new podcast episodes, and just some other things that I'm thinking. And that's really the only place you can get that just it's a little more. I was gonna say unhinged musings, but that's not the word I'm looking for. Though it may be more accurate, that's gonna say less, you know, rehearse less polish. This is kind of what I'm thinking about in regard to Christianity and productivity that week. And then on Fridays, you get my Reagan's roundup feature with just as five links from around the web, to help you on your journey to becoming a more productive Christian. So if you're not on the newsletter, you should sign up. It's redeemedproductivity.com/newsletter. And also now when you sign up for the newsletter, you get a free morning routine planner PDF. It's something I've pulled together, that kind of will walk you through the steps for creating a morning routine for yourself that involves things like Bible study, and exercise and prayer. And just if you walk through the steps, you'll have yourself a handy dandy routine in the morning. So check that out the redeeming productivity newsletter at redeemingproductivity.com/newsletter. And also if you're interested in supporting my work producing this podcast, these videos, blog posts, etc. You can do so on patreon.com/redeemingprod, there'll be a link in the description if you want more info on that. Okay, let's get into the meat of things. Let's get talking about dropping the ball gracefully. So here's the thing. I really hate letting people down. I do. And I think that there's I think that there's a problem there and motivations, which I'll talk about in a future episode on fear of man. But I really hate that feeling of letting someone down. And I think that in large part, that's what drives my interest in productivity. Sometimes, obviously, my more nobler reasons are that I do indeed want to glorify God with my life. But what really made me start thinking about how I can be more organized, how I can track my tasks better. The big thing that was motivating me was I just kept dropping the ball, people would ask me to do something, I'd commit to doing it. And then I'd forget. And so that's what got me into learning about how can I do this stuff better. And I do believe that this is part of being a Christian is we need to be people of our word. God is a God of his word. He always fulfills his promises. He never tells a lie. His yes is always yes is no is always No. And we as image bearers are to likewise be people of our word. And so when you commit to do something, that's a very serious thing. You You want your yes to be yes. And you know, to be no. But as you know, sometimes it can't be helped. Sometimes you really did want to do something you said you were going to do, but through maybe an error on your part, or circumstances that are outside of your control. Sometimes you let people down. Sometimes you can't fulfill that commitment. Sometimes you drop the ball. But since I want people to trust me, I want people to know that they can rely on me that can be devastating. You know, like, you want to be a person known as a person of your word, not just for your own, you know, personal self worth Back to your own reputation. But because you know that you represent Christ, you're a representative of God, you're an ambassador, for Christ, it says. So you want to be a person who's known as a person of your word, person, Person person. I think what maybe is ironic, I guess is that sometimes that fear of letting people down when things, you realize that you're not gonna be able to feel a commitment, sometimes that fear can actually lead to you making the situation worse. And what I mean is, you might try to find a way to work a bunch of overtime or something, or through the night to make up for a mistake, or for being double booked or double committed. And, you know, trying to make sure no one finds out that, that you didn't manage your time well or something. But the problem with that is it leads to this like vicious cycle of burnout, where you're constantly trying to fulfill these different commitments, and finding yourself falling short, and then trying to make up for them and then falling short and other commitments, and round and round we go, that is not a Mulberry Bush, you want to be circling weasel? Hmm. I don't think any of that's an expression. But it is now because that's how expressions are coined on podcasts. So and even worse, I think when it comes to letting people down and dropping the ball, we can even be tempted to lie sometimes, or bend the truth or just leave out some details to kind of cover over our failure. Or we might double down on our promises, we might say, well, I'll make up I'll make it up to you. But that actually, again, it can make things worse, and leads you to dropping the ball over and over again. And as a cereal ball dropper, myself, probably probably not what I should call that. But as someone who is who has done this multiple times, and is the reason I'm trying day in and day out to become a little bit more efficient, with my time a little bit more productive, a little bit better. at keeping track of the things I said I would do and making sure I actually have time to do them. It's because I am. I don't want to let people down. I want to I don't want to break their trust. I don't want to lose the respect. And I want to honor Christ by being a person of my word. So here are five ways maybe there'll be six but five ish ways on how you can learn the art of gracefully dropping the ball so that you don't lose people's respect or let them down or break their trust. 1. Don't Overcommit to Begin With So the first reason is this. Can you guys hear the Lacroix bubbling? I just love that. It's like um, the what was that cereal? right in that cereal like it doesn't exist Rice Krispies, you know, snap, crackle, pop, you can kind of hear the Lacroix. I'll keep it away from the mics. You don't have to hear it. I like subtle. If you heard the jokes about Lacroix where it's like, um, you know, the flavor is not intense. It's not like sweet. It's just kind of like hints of flavor. Someone said that Lacroix is like drinking water. And then someone shouts the name of a fruit from another room. That's what Lacroix tastes like. I thought that was funny. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, I was gonna tell you five ways to drop the ball gracefully. The first one in, I think probably the one that gets to the root of the problem, at least, the root of the problem for me, maybe this is same for you is the first reason or the first way to not drop the ball is to not over commit to begin with. I think over commitment can be a source for this kind of thing. Where you you want to say yes to things, you want to be helpful. You want to, you know, do things. And so you promise you say, Oh, yeah, I'll do that. Let me take care of that for you. But you do that so much that you find that it's actually too many commitments for you to handle. And no matter how well organized you are, every single one of us has a limit, even though we might try to push it guilty, often guilty of that myself. So I would say the first way that you can drop the ball gracefully, is by not putting yourself into a position where you're constantly having to drop the ball, because you've got too many things on your plate, keep the plate tidy. And this is just the art of learning to say no. This is you know being self aware enough to know your capacity and how much you can do and not to project yourself into the future and assume that the future you is going to have more time than the you right now. You know stuff always comes out life is not as clear as it is when you block it out on paper. So don't overcommit to begin with. And I think just as a good like practical application to this, keep us thinking calendar. It Doesn't have to be a stinking calendar, it can just be a normal calendar. But keep a calendar and keep it well. If you don't want to over commit to stuff, you need to track what you are committed to. And likewise, I actually talked about this in the next one, but track your tasks as well. Unless you know what you've said yes to, you aren't going to know if you have enough time to say yes to more things, if that makes sense. So keeping a rigorous calendar helps you not to over commit to things to begin with. 2. Develop a System to Track Your Commitments Okay, the second way that you can drop the ball gracefully, when you when you are over committed, is develop a system to track your commitment. So I just mentioned calendars. But the other side of that is a task tracking system. And I'm surprised in this day and age how many people still don't do this that I talked to. And so I'm not just talking about a to do list, I'm talking about a way of tracking the things that you have said you're going to do. If you have not read the book, getting things done by David Allen, I would commend it to you. It's a simple systematic approach to how you can kind of capture things as they come into your life and make sure that they actually get done. So you're not constantly trying to remember in your head, all the things that you've said you're going to do. It's a great book. And many, many software tools have sprung up around the concept of getting things done, I use OmniFocus. To do this is really popular things. You can do this with a bullet journal or just a simple notebook, but having a just a dedicated space, where you track what are the what are the things, what are the task, what do I need to get done today and tomorrow, things like that. That will go miles to make it so that you don't drop the ball as often. And again, number one applies here to again, don't over commit to things. But if you have visibility on what you're committed to, you're going to be much more likely to not drop the ball on things. And also transition that will help you to know if you are about to drop the ball on something so that you can communicate. 3. Communicate Early And so that's the third way that you can drop the ball gracefully. When you know that you're going to break a commitment. Tell people tell the person or people or boss or friend or whoever in advance, you know, if you something comes up and you know you had plans to go have dinner with some friends or something, and don't just like ghost him for one. But don't also like 10 minutes before you're going to meet at your local Chili's to get some pain yo poppers and a triple Dipper. Don't be like oh guy, sorry, I can't make it. Especially if you knew further in advance of that. And this is again, this is something that I I am guilty of myself is you know, most people will forgive a broken promise or a failure to complete something as intended. As long as you chest tell them as soon as you know about it. Do you know what I mean? Like people understand, like, nobody's perfect. Nobody gets 100% of the things done that they say they're going to get done. Like, things come up, you know, emergencies. And even just like foolish things where you double booked yourself. The trick is, tell them when soon as you know. So as soon as you know that you goofed a call a text and email cause a hugely long way to not just save face, but also honor the person that you know, you're about to let down. And if you know that there is even the potential for dropping the ball on something so you've committed to some project and, and the deadline for it is coming up. And you know, man, it's, it's gonna be tight. I don't know, if I'm gonna make this deadline. Don't just clam up and pretend that everything's gonna be okay. This is a great time for you to tell whoever's in charge. But I mean, I find this helpful. I manage people and I really appreciate when they over communicate to me when there's an expectation for something to be done. And they tell me, Hey, this and this and this came up. I think we're still gonna get it done on time, but I'm not sure I want you to know, I so appreciate that. Because then I'm able to communicate that and I and I'm able to set my expectations or reset my expectations, rather than being surprised when I thought everything was going fine. Because last time we talked was a week ago, dude, I mean, so communicate early, communicate often. As soon as you know that you're that you're dropping the ball on something, or even before if you know there's the potential to it. So communicate simple enough, isn't it? Except for it's kind of embarrassing, right? I think this is the reason that I struggle with this is you again you want you want to please people you want you want to come through you want to be trustworthy. But you kind of don't want people to see your flaws, your mistakes, especially if you, especially if you have a podcast about how to be productive, and then you drop the ball on something because you weren't productive on it, you're not I mean, like, there's a little bit of a blow to your ego to your pride. And so then you don't communicate. But again, it just makes things worse. So when when you when you know that you can drop the ball, communicate, communicate, communicate. 4. Be 100% Honest So on the subject of the art of gracefully dropping the ball here is the fourth way that you can drop the ball gracefully and not break people's trust or lose their respect for you. And that is be 100% honest, be 100% honest. Here's the deal. excuses are really not helpful. Um, even if they're true, like, I think there is a difference. Personally, I make a difference. In my mind, I've two different categories for excuse and an explanation for something. But an excuse is, as I define it, it's when you are basically trying to pass the blame. It might not be to another person, it might be the circumstances, but an excuse has these overtones of not taking ownership of the problem to say, Oh, I, you know, I almost got it done. But, but yeah, then then My car broke down, or I almost got it done. But then X, Y, and Z happened to me, you know what I mean? And that is not that helpful. And I just, again, speaking, as you know, somebody who manages people, I would, I don't mind you, I mean, I understand that things come up, and I want to hear an explanation. But I don't want to hear an excuse. I don't want to hear a hint in there of It's not my fault. And it may not be your fault. But what I mean is people appreciate it. When you take ownership and you're 100% honest. And so something maybe your car breaks down and you can't get to an appointment on time. You know, take ownership of that, be 100% honest, tell them exactly what happens. Or if you're running late, don't don't do that thing where Oh, GPS says five minutes, but you haven't like even, you know, left your house yet. Be 100% honest about it. That is going to go miles even when you mess up, even when things don't go your way. If the aim is that, Hey, I know I'm letting this person down. But long term, I don't want to break their trust, I want them to trust me. Well, a great way to have people trust you is to not lie to them. And mainly, again, be extremely, extremely honest, hundred percent honest about why you had that epic blunder. And maybe even if it's in a work setting, what you could have done differently, you know, practically saying, Yeah, you know, what, I, I could have had this, I could have worked on this sooner. I remember this coming up all the time, like in school, if you guys ever have teachers like this, where you come and you ask for an extension on a paper or some project and you say, Oh, yeah, you know, well, I had all these other things going on. And I kind of pulled an all nighter, and then my cat got sick and was throwing up everywhere. And you know, my dog had worms. And he was you just have so many pets, and they have so many medical conditions. But like, what does the teacher say? The teacher says, Well, you How long did you know this paper was? Do? You say? Well since the beginning of the semester, and they say well, how long did you have to work on it? Well, lots and lots of weeks. When did you start last night right before fluffy started hacking up along? And then they say sorry, paper still do, dude. I mean, like, that's pretty mean. It's not mean it's holding the line. And I get it, I get why teachers do that. And it is helpful, especially when you know that the students making an excuse. But that's what I mean about taking ownership of it is instead to say I should have started sooner, we could have finished this earlier. You know, I should have left the house earlier, I knew it was potential that this thing would happen to keep me from this appointment. And I should have told you just be 100% on it honest and take 100% ownership, people will appreciate that. And then long term that trust is still maintained. And I think the on the subject of honesty, I talked a little bit about excuses how you can blame circumstances. And I and I mentioned briefly that you can use it excuses, blaming someone else. That's horrible if you think about it, and sometimes that's your default. If you're trying to save face, you kind of maybe don't come out and say it but you kind of intimate that. Well, so and so didn't do XY and Z. And you know, so yeah, we really should have done better. And you know, I mean there's like this half apology, but really you're just like blaming somebody else. That is that's pretty rough, especially if you were the one responsible for doing the thing. It's it's your problem. Even if somebody else did let you down. You should have been on top of it and why If you're kind of hinting that it's someone else's fault, when it wasn't, you are like bearing false witness, which is a violation of the law of God, you're blaming somebody else for your mistake that you do not want to be doing, take ownership for it, be 100% honest, there's consequences take them. But in the end, you keep your integrity intact. And you will have been a great witness for Christ in the workplace and a great image bearer for him, wherever you are. 5. Ask for Forgiveness Okay, so we're talking about the art of gracefully dropping the ball, how to let people down without losing their respect. And so far, we've looked at five ways of doing that. The first is not to over commit to begin with second was develop a system to track your commitments. Third is communicate early and fourth was be 100%. honest, we hear this, here's the fifth way that you can drop the ball gracefully, when you're breaking a commitment and not lose people's trust or respect. And that is the simple act of asking for forgiveness. If someone trusted you to do something, whether it be as simple as again, you know, making an appointment on time, you know, for coffee or something, or if it's in the workplace, and it's the the fulfilling a project in the time that you committed to, or even in the home with your spouse or with your kids is you said you do something, and then you don't. And even if the circumstances outside of your control, whatever the reason, ask for forgiveness. You promised to do something, you said you would do something, and you did it. Ask for their forgiveness. Apologize to them, not in that weird kind of way, you know, where you don't actually take responsibility? You say, I'm sorry, for the way that made you feel. I'm very sorry for the way you reacted to that. I'm sorry that you were mad at the car for it breaking down on me. You know, just take responsibility and ask for forgiveness. Say, I'm so sorry. I said that I would do that. And I didn't. And then mega right. It's not hard, except for to the bride, simply to ask for forgiveness. I will offer one caveat on this point of asking for forgiveness. And that is simply that sometimes this is the only thing we do. Do you know what I mean? Like if you are a serial ball dropper, there's that term again, I cannot, I don't want to say that anymore. But if you're somebody who who constantly, you know, or repeatedly has failed to meet commitments, apologies wear thin real fast. And it is the only thing you do. And you think that it makes every it smooths everything over every single time. And you don't actually take steps to rectify maybe your poor planning or organizational habits, or your you know how much you commit to, you're going to actually make steps to fix that. It's not long before, people are like, Oh, they just don't do things. And then they come and say they're sorry afterwards for it not working out. You're gonna lose people's respect, you're gonna lose their trust and can be a poor witness, if that's your Mo. But what I am saying here is that when you genuinely mess up, take full responsibility and apologize for it. But then also, you know, as someone who, who genuinely wants to do it right next time, go back and make the steps figure out how do I not over commit? How can I track my commitments better? How can I make sure these kind of things don't happen in the future? And be serious about that. And when people see that change in you, they will you'll have their respect, you'll learn it and they, they won't look down on you just because you made a mistake once. And that's it's important as a Christian, that's important. It is. 6. Learn from Your Mistakes And okay, here's the bonus one. I'm gave you five ways to drop the ball gracefully. We're recommitment, disappoint someone, but to do it in a way that you don't lose the respect of their trust. And I just would say one last one. And then it's just learn from your mistakes. It's going to happen. You are going to drop the ball. You're going to fail to meet a deadline, complete a promise, fulfill a requirement of you. It's going to happen. But if you can pause hafter, that situation and look and try to figure out, Okay, what did I What could I be doing different in the future to make sure that doesn't happen again? That moment that time you spend self reflecting, maybe you're examining your own mindset towards things like I've mentioned fear man a couple times, it's something I've been thinking about about why is it to overcommit Reagan, it's because I care too much. I think that what people think about me, and so how can I set that at the heart level, so that in the future, I honor people by saying yes to the things that I really can do, and not bring up people's expectations that I'm going to do something for them. When I know that I don't really have the capacity to do it. Another part of the self exam is looking at your systems. You know, I mentioned I think in the intro to the last podcast that I had like a breakdown, basically, in my productivity system, one crisis kind of blew the whole thing up. Well, I had to spend a good probably half a day, tearing down my system for tracking tasks, and rebuilding it again and re kind of thinking about, okay, what went wrong? How can I fix this? How can I tweak this so that it's a little bit more resilient to crisis. And so I did that. And hopefully the fruit of that will be that that type of thing won't happen again, or at least I'll have the right steps in place to mitigate a disaster from messing up my whole week, or causing kind of a chain reaction of not fulfilling commitments, see what I mean? So learn from your mistakes, learn from them, improve, and keep going. And guys, listen, if you're a Christian, if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, if you've been united with Him by faith, then you are under God's grace, which means you can fail and fail even boldly, you will make mistakes, you will fail to fulfill things. And I think one of the problems that can happen, or maybe a better way to put it is, is this way is that productivity is something that people that are given to perfectionism, are kind of drawn to sometimes and so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of you listening would be self described perfectionists. And perfectionism is, is is in Christians, a denial of grace, right? It's a denial that you are imperfect that you are in need of God's help. And I think reminding yourself of the gospel, reminding yourself that you You are not perfect, you are not God is so helpful when you do drop the ball in a situation like this. It helps you be more honest about your own shortcomings with others and with God. And only then are you able to assess what went wrong, apologize, seek forgiveness if you messed up in some way, and then move on and keep going trying to do better next time in Christ strength. Well, guys, that's all I have for you this week. Thank you so much for listening and or watching. Appreciate you do check out that newsletter in the description. Oh, and if you are a Patreon supporter, head on over to Patreon. Now that the episodes over, I have a little clip on there that I made for you about an app that has really been changing the way I read Kindle books, and I think you will be interested in it. So check out that clip. And if you're not a Patreon supporter, you can join and get access to these bonus clips as well. The link for that is in the description. And I will see you again here next week. But until I do remember this that in whatever you do, do it well and do it all to the glory of God.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Matthew Everhard who is a Jonathan Edwards scholar. We discuss the productivity habits of the Puritan pastor, particularly his unique approach to knowledge management. Links Check out Matthew Everhard's YouTube ChannelRead his article at Modern ReformationSign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

Envy destroys our ability to do pleasing work for God. Instead of looking around at the "success" of others, we need to faithfully labor at what the Lord has put before us. Links Watch Redeeming Productivity on our YouTube channelSign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 01:21 Thank you to you supporters 05:16 The article that inspired this episode 07:48 Jealousy in the workplace 09:33 Envy is a sin 10:54 Envy is strongest when you see the wicked succeeding 13:10 You are not alone 14:45 We have a choice to make when we see the wicked succeeding 15:56 Don't envy the damned 19:14 The dangers of envy 21:19 How Christians view success 23:14 The meek shall inherit the earth 25:05 You don't have to be type-A to be successful 27:55 Conclusion

Have you ever felt guilty for listening to the Bible instead of reading it? In this episode, I try and answer whether or not it's "cheating" to listen to the Bible on audio instead of reading it. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different modalities of Bible consumption. And at the end I share some of my picks for the best way to listen to God's Word on audio. Links Watch Redeeming Productivity on our YouTube channelSign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter.2016 Study on Audio Learning Bible App by YouVersionStudy Bible by GTYDwell Audio Bible AppESV Hear the Word Audio BibleESV Daily Bible M'Cheyne Podcast ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Time Stamps 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:40 Is listening to the Bible on audio "cheating"? 00:03:40 Where does this question come from? 00:07:12 Reading the Bible at difference speeds 00:11:01 Listening to the Bible is the historic norm. 00:14:11 Dangers of listening to the Bible on audio. 00:16:31 Make sure you'are actually listening. 00:19:02 Only reading the Bible because you feel like you have to 00:21:22 Advantages to listening to the Bible. 00:23:21 The Bible is a book for life. 00:25:50 Ways to listen to the Bible. 00:27:52 Conclusion Transcript Welcome to another episode of the Redeeming Productivity Show. This is the podcast that helps Christians get more done and get it done like Christians. And I'm your host Reagan Rose. Well, guys, we have a excellent episode for you today. What are you talking about? The subject of listening to the Bible? So audio Bibles, when we talk about apps, we're going to talk about audio books, websites, that kind of thing. But actually the main thing I want to dwell on is the question of, is it okay to listen to audio books, audio Bibles? Is it okay to, uh, to listen to the Bible instead of reading it? Is it cheating before we get into that? I also just want to let you know that at the end of this episode, there's going to be a little bit extra, a little bit of a Patreon exclusive. So if you are one of my Patreon supporters, there'll be an extended clip from this episode that only you can hear. And if you're not one of my Patreon supporters, consider signing up, it's just patreon.com/redeemingprod. And for a few bucks a month, you get access to an exclusive feed. I'm trying to share more and more there. I actually have some goodies coming up soon. I'm gonna upgrade what I'm doing on Patreon and yeah, it also just helps support the show. So if you liked the show, you want to help me keep going, please check out my Patreon. And thank you to my Patreon supporters. You guys are the best, keep up the good work. So, is listening to audio Bibles cheating? And I think that a lot of you—I've, I've actually kind of run this by a few people and asked them if they knew what I meant by asking that question. So I asked my wife, I said, “if I ask you if listening to the Bible on audio is cheating, do you know what I mean?“ She said, “yeah, I know what you mean.“ You kind of have the sense that you should be reading the Bible with your old hose, with your eyes. And if you don't, then your kind of cheating yourself out of studying the Word of God...or something like that. In fact, I think this is something a lot of people think about audio books or books on tape in general is that it's not quite the same. I remember talking to, somebody was asking—this was years and years ago—they were asking for recommendation for where to get a good copy of an old book. And it was a specific title. And I linked to them that, “Hey, there's actually an audio version of this on sale right now.“ And they came—I was trying to be helpful—but they came back and they actually mocked me. They said, “ah, no, I actually want to read the book.“ And I was like, “okay, okay dude, fine. Don't take my recommendation.“ But I do think that that's indicative of this attitude that, uh, to listen to something is not quite as serious or quite as good as to actually read it. And so I want to question that assumption, uh, cause I think that hidden in there, there is some truth, but there also is some confusion about it. And if that's an issue for people feeling like listening is kind of cheating when compared to reading with your eyes, I think it's even more true when it comes to the Bible and as we'll see I think there's good reasons people think that way, but I also think there's good reasons to question that assumption. So as I was kind of researching for this episode I came across a thread on Reddit where somebody asked the following question. I feel like this is just like super representative of the types of thinking that a lot of us have when we think about that, maybe it'd be cheating, quote, unquote, to listen to the Bible. He says, “so this is likely a dumb issue, but this is something I wrestled with fairly often due to constraints on my time. I'm sometimes unable to read as much of the Bible aside desire. So I will listen to it on my drive to, and from work on occasion. However, I have always had this unexplainable hangup about listening to the Bible versus actually reading it instead of listening to it is cheating and not as helpful. I know that listening to an audio Bible is not the best idea if you're doing a serious scripture study or even trying to remember exactly what verse and chapter a particular passage is from. But honestly, is there anything wrong with listening to the Bible as much as you read it?“ Great question guy on Reddit! Where does this question come from? Why, why would we kind of instinctually think listening to the Bible on audio is not as good as reading it with our eyes? Well, I think it comes from a lot of places, you know, probably the result of how we've been taught to approach the Bible, um, you know, about studying it, uh, which is good about Scripture memorization about that. We go to Bible studies where it's very in depth and we're taught to go very slow. We're trying to really understand each and every word in each in reverse. And so how you approach the Bible is kind of colored by those things. And again, those are all very good things. Obviously we want to study the Bible. Obviously we want to go deep. Obviously it's the word of God. So we want to know exactly what every little aspect of it means. But I think some of that has kind of colored our thinking where we think, well, um, you know, if I'm listening to it, I'm not studying it. And I think that that, that part of it is probably mostly true. If you're listening to the Bible, you're not, it's going to be a lot harder for you to study it. You know, you're going to hit, hit pause a bunch. It's hard to look up the words. It's hard to look exactly what verse was, which, you know, there, there are limitations to it. But I think a lot of those limitations are also there. If you just read the Bible, if you just read it, um, you know, like big chunks of it at a time, you're also not studying it in depth, which is okay. That's okay. I think you need to do both. Some of the ways that our Bibles are designed actually kind of makes us think that we really only should be studying them. Uh, so like our traditional Bible, you know, with the two columns, all the cross-references, all the extra stuff, it looks like no other book that you would find is that maybe a dictionary or something, the way that it's laid out, it doesn't look like a book. Um, it looks like a reference material. And so I think there are even in that, like these subtle hints that you shouldn't approach, you shouldn't read this book, you should, you should study it. It's, it's more of a technical book. Um, but you know, more recently in the last, I don't know, 10 years, the popularity of single column Bibles, or even Bibles you can get that don't have verse numbers at all and kind of encourage you just to read it and not be stopped every 10 words by a superscript of the verse or with a cross reference, but just to try to take in the Bible as it is, as a book. Um, so I think that a lot of the, a lot of the hang ups we might have about listening to the Bible would also be equally true of just reading long portions of the Bible. That's my point there. But again, I don't think that we should feel guilty listening to the Bible. I don't think we should be guilty. We should feel guilty if we're reading long portions of the Bible and not always studying it in depth. I think you need to approach the Bible at different speeds. Sometimes you go fast. Sometimes you go slow. Sometimes you stay on the surface and you're just trying to get the larger context. And sometimes you go really, really deep because you really want to understand some technical details. And you need to approach it in all those ways. Back to the, uh, the question at hand: Is listening to it cheating? Is listening to the Bible cheating? Well, I think one reason we might think that it's cheating. Um, and probably the same reason that we might think about people who listen to books on tape as a bunch of no good cheaters is because retention. There is this notion that if I listen to it, I'm not retaining the information as good as if I read it with my eyes. That's actually, probably per chance-ive-ly, not true. So there's actually a 2016 study that was done. Um, and it was led by Beth Rogowsky, uh, who is a associate professor of education at Bloomsburg university. And she wanted to prove or disprove some of her own assumptions about audio learning. Um, and she, she said, even in the abstract to it, or maybe the introduction to the study, she says that, you know, she always had this feeling that listening was cheating because you couldn't possibly retain the same amount of information by listening than if you read it with your eyes. So she did this study of a bunch of different people who were like 25 to 40 and college educated and just, they, they did this study on retention. They read this book on World War II, it had lots of facts, lots of figures. And at the end of it they quizzed them. And then there was a two week gap and then they quizzed them again. And they had three groups. One would read it with their eyes, one that listened to an audio version, and one that did both at the same time. So both modalities they listened to and read at the same time. And the results of the study were that there was actually no discernible difference in any of the groups, even the one that you would assume, you know, taking in through two senses, listening and hearing you'd assume all that one's going to be the best, no discernible difference. And I think that that's interesting, you know, she even said it in the conclusion of it—you can read the study, I'll link to it in the show notes—but in conclusion, she said, you know, this may, this was narrative form nonfiction, so right? It was history of World War II. So maybe something to do with the narrative structure helped. Maybe this wouldn't work as well for technical things or, you know, like a textbook or something, but even still, at least it calls into question some of our instinctual assumptions about audio learning as a format and as it applies to the Bible. And that led me to think, why is it that we kind of even have this instinct? Why do we think that it's not going to be as good if I listened to it? I think the main reason we think this is because usually when we're listening to something we're multitasking. And so we're not going to retain the information as well, because we're not actually listening. I think the same would be true. Um, is if you were reading the Bible and you were also going back and forth and reading a different book at the same time. Like if you had them both open and they just had nothing to do with each other and you're just flipping back and forth. Of course, you're going to miss parts of the Bible text and you're going to skip around, you're going to, you're going to, you're not paying attention. Uh, so I think that's a big part of it is if you actually listen to the audio, um, it's not gonna be that big of a difference. But also something to consider if you're asking the question, should, uh, should I listen to audio Bibles? Is that wrong? Is it cheating? One thing you should consider is that listening to the Bible historically is the norm, right? It's a, it's actually, we live in a very strange time. Uh, historically speaking that we all have easy access to written Bibles and that we're actually literate that we can read them, um, this for the majority of Christian history. And, and before that was Jewish history, like you, most people did not have their own copy of the Bible. Um, I talked about this some in an episode a long time ago, uh, I think it was the one on the perfect morning devotions plan, but I'll just rehash some of it briefly, uh, before Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press you couldn't, it was hard to get up. You had to have a lot of money to afford, to have a Bible. And even if you did have a Bible if you can't read it, you couldn't read it. So, um, it was pretty normal that the way you consume the Bible was you heard it read to you in church. And this was true also, um, in the synagogues, this is true. Historically someone would read the Bible, you would hear it. You would hear the word of God. And you see this throughout Scripture, you know, um, in the book of Nehemiah, you remember, you know, the rebuilding, the wall around Jerusalem and Ezra is there and he pulls out the Law of God and he reads from early morning until midday. Remember, all the people were crying, they were weeping? Some of them out of joy, some of them out of, “Oh my goodness, we're hearing the word of God finally again.” It's this amazing occasion. And then during the Feast of Booths, he, he read for seven days straight from the law of God. And again, you know, you see that Scripture commands people to hear and learn. Deuteronomy 31:12. You see this all throughout the old Testament. It's hearing the word of God. Um, Joshua 8:35, Joshua read before all the assembly of Israel. So the way that they heard the word was that it was read to them. And you see this, of course, in the new Testament as well. Um, in the apostle Paul's letters he indicates that they're supposed to be read before the church. It wasn't, you know, they didn't get their, uh, you know, their, uh, their Xerox machine and make a copy for everybody. Um, they didn't have Xerox machines, so they couldn't do that. But Colossians 4:16, listen to the apostle Paul says, about his letter, he says the intent was that it would be read among you. People needed to hear it. That was the intention. So this is always been the case, historically our access to physical printed Bibles and our ability to read them is unique. If you look at it historically speaking, um, that doesn't mean that it's not good. This is not an anti read the Bible with your eyes podcast, but that would be an interesting, a whole podcast themed, um, about, uh, being against reading the Bible with your eyes. That would be very niche. No, that's not what this is, but I am saying that trying to shake off some of the unusual illness or the cheety-ness in our thinking about listening to the Bible. It's okay to listen to the Bible. That's what the do the church has done for a long, long time. But let me circle back to some of the potential pitfalls of listening to the Bible on audio. And then I'll give some advice, some different ways to think about when you're reading through it. And I'll, I'll wrap up at the end here with a couple of suggested apps and stuff. And I'm planning to, Lord willing, produce a little video with a roundup of some of the different apps and some of the different suggestions that many of you gave to me when I asked over the last weekend about how you listen to the Bible. So I ask that on Twitter and I got a ton of responses. It just keeps blowing up. It's even going right now on my phone as I'm recording this. Lots of good answers, but I tried to distill them down to the ones I think are best. So keep an eye out for that video later this week. So the Bible audio Bible, what would be some potential pitfalls there of listening? Well, I kind of touched on it earlier, but I think the biggest one is are you paying attention? Um, you might feel like listening to an audio Bible is cheating because you're cheating because you're, instead of reading the Bible of your eyes, you're playing on audio so that you can kind of assuage your guilt at not reading the Bible as closely as you ought to do and just doing something else while it's playing in the background. You know what I mean? That's uh, yeah, you should probably feel bad about that, honestly. If instead of reading the Bible with your full attention, you're saying I'm going to play the Bible in the background while I do something else. I think that's a problem. I think that is a problem. I think you do need to, if you're going to listen to the Bible and read the Bible, you should pay attention to it. There are times maybe additional reading, additional listening that you'll do that, have it in the background with the understanding that you're not fully paying attention the whole time. But I just mean if you're you're picking one or the other, whether I'm going to read it with my eyes or I'm gonna listen to it, all I'm saying is like for your daily devotions, all I'm saying is if you are going to do the audio version, well, make sure you're actually listening. Because then it is, is not the same if you're not. You know, the Bible is God's word, right? It's inspired. It's breathed out by God. When you read the Bible, it is, it is the very word of God. It is an incredible book, but it is not magical. And what I mean by that is simply having the Bible playing in the background or reading the Bible and not understanding it doesn't really do anything for you. It doesn't do anything for you. If it doesn't penetrate the understanding, then it will not transform the heart and it will not result in actions. So you have to understand it. So that's another reason why you have to be listening closely. Back to Nehemiah 8:8. It said that they read from the book from the law of God. Clearly they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading. And my pastor, pastor John MacArthur, often says that "the meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture." If you don't understand what you're listening to, because you're not really paying attention, then there really was no point in doing it that, why did you, why were you listening? Why did you have it playing if you weren't going to listen to it and try to understand it? So that's just a little warning there about if you're going to listen to audio Bible, make sure you actually listen to it. I also think that there's a consideration here when you're asking yourself, is it wrong for me to listen to an audio Bible? I do think it's worth considering the aspect of reverence. Um, multitasking while listening to the Bible, I don't think is necessarily wrong. Um, you know what I mean? Like cleaning the kitchen and having the Bible on in the background, uh, I don't think that's necessarily wrong. Like I said again, I think if you're, if you're doing audio to supplement your daily devotions, where you have like a focus time of reading the word, I would try to as much as possible, um, keep that time, uh, you know, kind of sanctified and make sure that you're actually listening during that. But if the option is okay, I'm going to clean the house and I can either listen to, um, gangster rap or the Bible. I would, I would say, yeah, put the Bible on instead (that's a false dichotomy). But I mean, if you're going to be listening to something, my point is, if you're going to be listening to something, why not have it be the Bible? Why not? Even if you don't catch every single part of it, some of it will penetrate the understanding. Some of it will sink into your heart. So why not have that in the background? You know what I mean? The point really is just that in your own, thinking in your heart, just make sure that you're not treating God's word lightly. But again, our approach to the Bible, I really don't think it should be guilt based where we feel like we have to check the box every day. I think it's, it's a great discipline to study the Bible every day to read a little bit every day. But that doesn't mean that you should be doing it simply because you feel like, well, I'll be a bad Christian if I don't. Do you know what I mean? That's a negative motivation. It needs to be from a positive motivation, like, like in Psalm one, one in Psalm 1:1–2, it talks about the blessed man. It says the blessing, man. "His delight is in the law of the Lord on his law. He meditates day and night." It's positive. The motivation is I want to hear more of God's word. I want to hear it on my commute. I want to hear it when I'm out jogging in the neighborhood that, that audio Bibles make that super possible and awesome that you can constantly be meditating and hearing God's word throughout your day. Um, but your reason for doing that needs to be because I love it because I want to hear from God, not because you think that the more hours of Bible listening you get in the more, um, you know, having the brownie points you get or something like that. Okay. So don't take it for granted. God is speaking. Whether you read or listen to the word of God, he's speaking. So take that seriously. But yeah, I do think that if you're giving it the appropriate reference in your heart, man, audio Bibles are awesome. And then I guess I kind of touched on this earlier, but I would just sum it up this way: Supplement don't replace reading with your eyes. If you have the benefit of being literate, you have the benefit of good eyesight and you can read a Bible with your eyes, just because it's not historically the norm that we've had this blessing, doesn't make it any less of a blessing. The fact that we have access to all these translations and all these great printed Bibles take advantage of that study deeply use that become a scholar of the word of God. But in addition to that, I'd say, yeah, listen to the Bible, listen to it. You read deeply for depth and read widely and lots of passages for breadth. And then just some kind of some advantages that I see of listening, uh, versus reading. Uh, so I, I focused mostly on trying to, um, do away with some of the negative, uh, assumptions we might have about listening to the Bible. But I think there are many positive reasons that you should listen to the Bible that actually it is, has advantages at edges out reading and some really cool ways. One, is that listen to the Bible affords you insights that you might miss when you're just reading it. I think you can all the time, just because you're listening to different modality, it it's helpful in that way or, or the way that the speaker emphasize a certain things, you know, adds a layer of interpretation to the reading of the word that might help you to understand something kind of a different way than you had when you just read it yourself. I think there's even this interesting juxtaposition that can happen when you're doing something while listening to a certain passage that can bring you new insights. I don't know if you've ever had this happen where you you've been reading something in the morning and it's a familiar passage, something from the New Testament, and then something you're doing later that day, uh, helps you to under that passage comes to mind in the context of doing whatever it is you're doing. And you start to understand the passage in a new way. What I mean like for example, is maybe you're listening to Jesus talk about the four soils while you're working in the yard. And you're thinking about the, the, the soil and the seeds and, and, and you're like, Oh, that's, that's interesting. Okay. So I see the thorns and things like that. And just being there, it just adds a shade of color to it. Um, or hearing Paul talk about running the race, right, while you're out, jogging around with your AirPods in, listening to Paul talk about running the race and you're actually running. I do think that that there's an immersive aspect of that that's really good. That's really good. And it's hard to get that when you're just reading it. Um, I think there's a reason Deuteronomy six, seven. I think there's a reason that in Deuteronomy six, seven tells parents to teach their children as they sit in the house as they walk in the way as they lie down, as they rise that the Bible is a book for life, not just ivory study. The Bible comes alive when you are thinking about it and meditating on it and even consuming it throughout your day. And audio provides a great way to do that. Other advantages are kind of obvious and probably the reason that you would even want to read, uh, the Bible via audio time redemption, right? Driving exercising time that might otherwise be spent listening to gangster rap can be spent, uh, listening to the Bible. And that's, you can't do that. Um, at least not safely, you can't read the Bible while running or, um, or driving cause you'll crash your car or you'll run into a ditch. And I touched on this before too, reading for breadth of context. It's just awesome to sit down and just hear someone read the Bible for, you know, 20 minutes or an hour. That's yeah, it's just great. You get a whole bunch of context at once. And really the big thing is—and this goes along with supplementing your reading with listening—is it can allow you to consume more of the word of God than you would, if you only limited yourself to reading so huge advantages worth doing, it's a good thing. So my advice to you when it comes to reading the Bible via your ears is do both do both. I don't think you should think of it as cheating. Uh, I think if at all possible read with your eyes, listen with your ears, do both, don't feel bad about it, make sure you do it with reference, uh, but take advantage of this awesome blessing we have where we have this great technology where you don't just have to have like some servant jog alongside you and read the Bible to you. There's a little robot in your phone that does it. That's pretty awesome. So do both do both. Just wrapping up here. I want to give you a few suggested apps and some different ways of listening. Like I said before, I'm going to (Lord willing) be doing a video that I'll release later this week. That does kind of a roundup of some of the top, uh, ways of listening to the Bible, but just briefly things to look, look at: YouVersion, which is you probably all have that Bible app on your phone, uh, has a great audio feature for, you know, most of the Bible translations that has. So if you want an all in one option, YouVersion already has it use it. It's free. Dwell. This one got recommended to me like a bazillion times in that Twitter thread. And I actually signed up for a subscription to it. You have to pay, I think it's like 30 bucks a year or one 150 for a lifetime of it. But if you think about what you're getting, it's pretty well worth it. They've recorded the Bible—It's an audio first Bible app basically—and they've recorded the Bible with a bunch of different voices and different translations. And the app is just incredible. You can play different types of music in the background, which I personally don't like, but you might. And all the voices are super high quality and it's just a really, really well done app for audio Bible listening, probably the best one out there. So check out Dwell, um, the Grace to You Study Bible app, which I actually helped work on. Um, that one has an audio feature too. Uh, the ESV App is excellent. Or if you want to just buy a Bible from Audible, uh, or from, uh, Christian Audio, check out the ESV here, the word Bible. And then also if you like that voice, there's a podcast, um, by Crossway and it's the ESV audio Bible, but it's broken up into chunks and it follows the Robert Murray M'Cheyne reading plan. So just look up ESV Daily Bible on your podcast player. And basically you'll get like one Old Testament or no two Old Testament, uh, one New Testament and one either Gospel or some section a day. It's about 10, 15, 20 minutes a day. And you'll work your way all the way through the Bible. If you listen to that year round, um, in one year we work all the way through the Bible and listen to the Psalms and the, uh, new Testament twice. So the old Testament once Psalms twice new Testament twice, I believe so check all of those out. Um, and yeah, hopefully those are helpful to you. Well, that's all I have for you this week. Thank you so much for listening or watching and to you Patreon supporters, I have an additional bonus content after this available. If you go log into Patreon, you'll find it there. I'm going to be talking about how audio books and specifically audio Bibles changed my life. So if you're interested in that had an over to patreon.com and if you're not a Patreon supporter, consider becoming one, you help support the show. And also you unlock bonus content like this additional, uh, time for the podcast. And I actually have a lot of things cooking right now for more Patreon perks, more on that coming soon. So check that out. patreon.com/redeemingprod. And thank you again to all my patrons. Appreciate you guys so much. Well, I'll see you again here next week, but until I do remember this, that in whatever you do, do it well and do it all to the glory of God.

Life hacks are simple shortcuts to help get everyday tasks done more efficiently. But Christian contentment is the ultimate life hack. In this episode, we explore what contentment is, how you can get it, and how it allows Christians to change their attitudes without changing their circumstances. Links Watch Redeeming Productivity on our YouTube channelBook: The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Transcript Welcome to the Redeeming Productivity Show. This is the podcast that helps Christians get more done and get it done like Christians. And I'm your host Reagan Rose. Well, in this week's episode, we're going to be talking about the subject of Christian contentment. Namely, why contentment is the Ultimate life hack. More on that in a minute, but before we get into it in earnest, I just wanted to tell you that I am back at it with a video version of the podcast. So a lot of you—I know most of you—listen to this via audio podcast on Apple Podcasts or something like that. Well, there's also a video version on YouTube and there has been going back for quite a while actually, but I stopped doing them when it got too hot. Because I shoot this in the garage and it gets too hot in the garage. And so it was, it was too hard to make it pretty and not be sweating. So now it's cooled off a little bit. So I'm back at it. So if you are not subscribed to the YouTube channel, go on YouTube, go to Redeeming Productivity, just search it or just click the link in the description here. And you will find me there. And I have other videos there as well, in addition to the podcast content. So you'll want to check that out. And also of course, as usual, if you're not subscribed to this podcast on your podcast player, you ought to go ahead and do that. A special shout out to the Patreon supporters. Appreciate you guys so much! There are now 11 of you, which is amazing to me and really does help offset the cost of this. So if you are a listener to this or a watcher of this with your ojos, and you want to help support the efforts of Redeeming Productivity, do check out my Patreon page. That's patreon.com/redeemingprod. And you can become a monthly supporter for as little as three bucks a month. And I hop on there from time to time, give some exclusive content and also do early releases of episodes from time to time. So check that out. More coming soon over there…soon. So keep your eyes peeled and your ears…ears peeled, uh, ears…ears…open ears, unclogged ears? Peeled. Okay. Let's get into the topic of today's show. So earlier this week I tweeted, I tweeted, um, a tweet. I tweeted a tweet that just said that "contentment is the ultimate life hack." And over on my Instagram, I shared a little bit more about what I meant by that. And I figured, you know what? I should do a whole episode about what that means. So why would I say that contentment is the ultimate life hack? That's what I want to talk about today. And so we're going to do three things, hopefully, depending on how long this takes. I might have more material than I have your attention. So I might split this up, but we'll see. So three things we're going to do. We're going to say, why contentment is the ultimate life hack. Then we're going to look at what exactly contentment is, biblically, where I get a little theological on you. I looked up some Greek words. So hold onto your hats lady and gents. Lady and gents, because there's only one lady who listens to this and it's my mom. And then lastly, we're going to answer a question—and that is one that often comes up. You might be wondering at the end of this episode as well. It's if I get too content…does contentment kill ambition? Will it kill my drive to be productive if I'm actually content? Hmm. Interesting question, Reagan. Yes. Thank you. I made that up and we'll answer it shortly. Okay. So let's dig in. Why is contentment the ultimate life hack? Well, you know what life hacks are, right? Like someone's like, here's a cool way to open a jar with just your teeth or, um, you know, here's a simple way to save 10 seconds tying your shoes. I don't know. You remember life hacks they're really popular in like the 2010s and still people will do like "10 Smart Life Hacks". But when I think about life hacks kind of the goal of them is to, help you save time. They're shortcuts. Right? They're shortcuts. That's really what they are, to doing common things. So why is contentment the ultimate life hack? Well, I've got four reasons. The first is that contentment, true biblical contentment, changes your attitude without you having to change your circumstances, right? So when, when people say, well, I'm unhappy. They think, well, if only I had X, if only I achieved this goal, or I did this thing, then my attitude would change. Then I would be happy. What contentment does, is it short circuits that whole, "trying to get at the goal in order to change your attitude," by simply changing your attitude from the beginning. So that's the first one: Contentment's the ultimate life hack because it changes your attitude without forcing you to change your circumstances. And second it is, as I just alluded to, a shortcut to happiness. Basically, I think this can happen to Christians—and I think a lot of people who do not know the Lord. This is kind of what drives them, they have these ambitions, they have these goals, they have these big projects that they're driving towards and they want to, they want to achieve, you know? Whether it's a promotion or they want to start a company or they just, they want to have kind of their house in order or whatever it may be. But what they really want is not that goal. What they want is the felt outcome of that goal, which is happiness or a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment or, or joy. Right? And if you are content in Christ, if you cultivate the virtue of contentment, you actually have a shortcut to happiness. You achieve the real outcome of the goals that you're after, which is satisfaction, without actually even achieving those goals. So it's a trick; it's a shortcut. You think that if you achieve that thing, you'll be happy. Well, guess what? In Christ, you can be content in whatever circumstances without having to accomplish some giant thing. Third, why is contentment the ultimate life hack? Because it puts you in a right relationship to providence. It puts you in a right relationship to providence. And I'm going to talk about this a little bit more in a minute. What exactly, I mean by that. Then fourth, contentment is the ultimate life hack because it smashes sinful anxiety. It puts you in this, this kind of position toward your goals that is peace-based instead of like desperation-based. And I'll talk about that a little bit more in the, in the final section here as well. But it smashes sinful anxiety. When you cultivate contentment, you are able to go about your goals. You're able to be productive, able to strive without having to be stressed out or anxious in a sinful way. Okay. So contentment's the ultimate life hack. I just gave you four reasons, but what is contentment exactly? What is contentment and how do I get it? How do I learn it? Well, there's several verses in the new Testament of the Bible, there's several passages that speak of contentment and they all use variations of the same Greek word, which is arkeo. And it can either mean like "sufficient" or "enough" when it's used in active voice, or when it's used passively, it can mean "content" or to be "satisfied". So it's kind of both sides of it. It can be a thing that is sufficient or it is enough. Or the effect of it, you know, when it's applied to you, is that it results in you being content or satisfied. So arkeo, and we see this like in 2 Corinthians 12:9. These are all actually really well known verses you probably—if you've been a believer for awhile—these are probably versus you kind of maybe have memorized at one point or at least heard a lot. So like 2 Corinthians 12:9, it's when the apostle Paul is recounting God's message to him. And he says, “my grace is sufficient” It's arkeo for you, it's sufficient for you. It's enough. “for my power is made perfect in weakness.“ Or we also see it in the passive side in 1 Timothy 6:8, where he writes, “But if we have food and clothing with these, we will be content.“ There will be enough if we just have food and clothing. It will be enough. We don't need more than that. Hebrews 13:5 also says, “keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have for, he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.‘“ And then one more, just for good measure, Luke 3:14, it's talking about when the soldiers were talking to Jesus and they asked him, “what shall we do?“ And he said to them, “do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations and be content with your wages.“ So again, content, content. So we might say this: To be biblically, to be content, that it's a state of being satisfied, of feeling that you have enough. And even in those passages I quoted, you know, if you just have food and clothing or the soldiers who have been converted and they, and they wanted to know, well what should we do? He said, don't extort people just be content with the wages that you're getting for your work. And it's this attitude of being okay with present circumstances of being content in them; being satisfied. And contentment is more than just like a personality trait. Like, I think we all know people in our lives that are kind of like at peace. You know, they seem pretty content. You want to like order a meal or something, and you say, what do you want? They're like, “I don't care, whatever you guys want.“ Or somebody—another food related one—they get their order wrong at you know McDonald's or something. And they're like, “Oh, you should send that back. You should, you should, get them to correct that“ and say, “no, this'll be fine. I don't mind.” They're so content. Well, some people, you know, I think are more given to this to be kind of, you know, they're not as needy, you know. They are content with circumstances. But it's more than just a personality trait, contentment, biblically. It has a source. It's more of a, a view. It's more of a belief. It's, it's actually an act of faith. It has a view towards, towards Christ. And God is the reason that your content. It's not, it's not that you're just a contented person. It's that you have an understanding. You have a belief, you have a theology that allows you to be content, even in bad circumstances. There's a great book by Jeremiah Burroughs. It is called, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs, who was a Puritan. I have read this book, I think two or three times already. And it is very convicting and it is very helpful in teaching you to become more content. And he deals with contentment from all these different angles and basically how you can learn it. But in that book, Jeremiah Burroughs has a great description of Christian contentment. He says, “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.“ I love that. It's, it's not, it's not, not this kind of like Buddhist disconnection from reality where you're kind of floating above it all, you know, “Om, om” or something. That's not Christian contentment. Christian contentment is this inner, what did he say? A sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit. And it freely submits to and delights in God's fire God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition. You see what that is? It's a disposition towards God's providence, right? It's a disposition toward the fact that God's in control of things. And though these circumstances might be bad, my plans might have been thwarted, some tragedy may have fallen me, but I know the God whom I serve. And because I know Him, that He is a fatherly caring God who is in control of all circumstances, I can trust that even in these bad situation, God still loves me. And I will submit to the circumstances of providence. And not just submit to them. He says, I will delight in them because I'm content. I will delight because I will say to myself, self, this is not what you planned. This is not what you wanted. But these circumstances are what God has brought. And God loves me. He cares for me. He wants the best for me. And therefore these circumstances are the best for me. And so I will praise that wise God, and I will delight in these circumstances. And I will find a way to be thankful for this providence, though it may be bitter in the time. Contentment is this ability to meet the events of life, not by being disconnected, kind of, and just letting, letting them wash over you and not caring because you're apathetic. That's not what it is. Contentment is not apathy. Contentment is meeting the circumstances of life, armed with a knowledge of who God is and that he cares for you. And with that knowledge trusting fully that those things are true. It's meeting head on the circumstances of life with a peace and even a delight that God has brought them about. Contentment is you trusting that in any situation God's will, is the best for that situation. And so you will have a peaceful spirit, which can say with all honesty and all sincerity, “as the Lord wills.“ So that's what contentment is. The next question is how do I actually cultivate contentment? You say that rare jewel you're talking about Reagan, I want that jewel. And that is, you know, that's why Burroughs calls it the rare jewel of Christian contentment, because it's valuable. And it also really is rare. A lot of people do not have this. It is a precious thing to have. And so seeing what it is, seeing that, yeah, wow, this is the ultimate life hack, I can be content without striving my whole life. So like so many people do this thing where they think, “Oh man, if I just end up with the perfect career,“ “if I could just be the boss,“ “if I could just have this product launch, take off,” “If I could, if I could just have my family perfect. And all my kids be polite and all of them graduate with good grades and go on to good colleges and be sent out of the home, then I'll be successful. Then I'll be happy. Then I'll be content.“ You know, “if I could just make enough money, then I'll be content.“ Now here's the trick: Contentment is the ultimate life hack because it allows you, without having to achieve all those things, to already have that outcome, to already be happy, satisfied, to say it is enough—What I have right now. Because this is what God has deigned to give me at this time. That's pretty awesome. So we know what it is. We know why we want it now. How do we get it? If content, how do we get contentment? Well, contentment can be learned. I think it is incredibly important to recognize, as I said that before, that, you know, it feels like some people are just kind of contented, peaceful people. Well, maybe some people are more given to it. But it's clear from scripture that it can be learned. Philippians 4:11–13. This is the apostle Paul. Again, he says, “not that I speak from want for, I have learned to be content.“ I have learned to be content. It was something he could learn, “in whatever circumstances I am in. I know how to get along with humble means and also how to live in prosperity. In any, and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering.” And you say, Paul, what is this? What, what did you learn? How did you learn contentment? Whether you have a lot or have a little? He says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.“ The secret knowledge, as it were, that enabled Paul to endure and face anything with God almighty was that he recognized that God was able to strengthen and sustain him with any challenge he met, whether it's temptation to despair through tragedy or temptation or to idolize riches and comfort when circumstances are good. No matter what, he knew how to be content in those things. Because the secret to contentment that he learned is that he had to walk close with the Lord who would provide the strength in all of those circumstances. That's how you become content. How will you be contented person? By walking closely with the Lord and trusting in his strength. But not only can contentment be learned, contentment also comes through fearing the Lord. Proverbs 19:23 says “the fear of the Lord leads to life. Then one rest content untouched by trouble.“ So the fear of the Lord allows you to be content. If you begin by putting God first in your life, by fearing him above all other things, whether that is other people or fearing bad circumstances of “what if this happens, what if this happens?“ Or “what if I fail? What if this?” If you put Christ first and you fear God most, contentment will follow that. You will be able to rest. Why? Because again, you're resting in His strength. You're resting in a trust in Him. And that's, that's the last point I want to make on this point, which is that contentment comes through faith. It can be learned. It comes from fearing the Lord. And ultimately it comes through faith. Namely, believing that God really is sovereign. He's powerful. And he is favorably disposed toward his children. It's an amazing thing. Once you realize that God actually desires good for his children and he hasn't just saved us to, to forget us or, or, or that he has kind of begrudgingly saved us. And He's like, “alright, you know what? Um, you're saved, but just chill on earth for awhile until I perfect you. And you know, we can be in heaven and then maybe I'll talk to you.“ No, he wants good for us. God wants good for us. He looks on you—if you are in Christ, if you're Christian, if you've repented of your sins, put your faith in Jesus Christ—God, the Father, the One who is in control of this whole universe thing, He looks on you favorably because you are in Christ. But sometimes even Christians (I know I'm guilty of this) sometimes we're tempted to believe that maybe God wants good for us, but He's just, you know, not really able to bring it about. You know, maybe He's kind of like, “yeah, I really would love good stuff for you, but you know, bad things, bad things happen sometimes.“ But no, that's not true. God is sovereign. He's in control of the circumstances. He both desires good for us and He is always able to, and is in fact always bringing it about in our lives, through orchestrating the means of our circumstances. That's a complicated way of saying God's in total control of everything. Even the bad stuff that happens to you. And even the bad stuff and happen that happens to you He is orchestrating for your good, because he loves you. And that's just Romans 8:28. Isn't it? I mean, this is basic stuff, guys. Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.“ So if you, if you love God, if you've been called according to his purpose, which is to say, if you have been saved, you've been redeemed by God. Then all things are working together for your good. The only way that's possible is because the following premises are true. And that is that God is in control of everything. And he loves you. Therefore, all the circumstances that happen to you are working for your good, and you can trust that that's true. How's contentment relate to this> Contentment is actually believing that actively, even in the face of circumstances that would tempt us not to believe that those things are true. Contentment is your reaction to that reality. It's the result of your faith in trusting that God is in control and he cares about me that he's working all things together for my good. You believe that that's true. If you believe God's always working all things together for your good, well, you will be content. You will not be restless. You will not be fearful or anxious because of the risk of things happening to you. Or you will not despair because bad things happen to you. And likewise, it's just, Paul had said, when good things happen to you when your plans are succeeding, when things are going really, really good, you might be tempted in the opposite direction, which is to trust in yourself and to forget about God and think, “wow, look what I've done for myself.“ But even then you won't be content. You won't be satisfied. Even when, if your house is full of riches, you have all the things you ever wanted in life and everything's working out great, you will not be content. If you are not trusting in the Lord and trusting that all that you have is yours by his good hand. And as Job said, “the Lord gives and he takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.“ I think that's one of the big things that can happen to us. You may, through God's blessing you, through the means of your being productive, and you striving hard in life, you may meet your goals and they may be satisfying for you. But my point is that they won't stay satisfying. They won't ultimately be fulfilling to you because you weren't meant to be fulfilled by those things themselves. You're meant to be satisfied in Christ. And sometimes what can happen to us is that we get everything we want. And then we start to get anxious. We start to get anxious because we wonder “what if it all goes away?“ “What if there's a downturn in the housing market? And I, and I lose my house.“ “What if I get fired from my job?“ You know, “I got all the way here but I could lose it all in a minute.“ “What if somebody sues me or what if one of my kids turns on me and they turn out to be a real rascal and, and run off and I'd say, well, all my parenting, what was that for?“ See what I mean? If you don't constantly walk close with the Lord and be believing that He desires good for you and all that He brings about is good, and he is in control of it, you won't be content, whether you have a little or a lot. And that's what makes it the ultimate life hack. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And then finally, on this point, I would just add this contentment comes from knowing that all you really need is Christ. All you really need is Jesus Christ. Hebrews 13:5 says, “keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have.“ I read that one earlier, but did you notice why he said that that? It is because these are temptations, right? Especially somebody who's kind of driven, right. Oftentimes we're, we're seeking to better our lives through our work monetarily. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But the problem Scripture states is the love of money. So he says, keep your life free from the love of money and be content with you, have. Why? Well he appends the reason. He says, “because I will never leave you nor forsake you.“ So Christ said the same. You can be content with what you have and not idolize riches or whatever else in life, if you are fully satisfied in the fact that Christ is yours, that he will never leave you for sake, you will always have Him. Those things they'll come and go, money comes and goes, relationships, come and go, successes, come and go. But Christ is with you always. And if He is your joy, if He is the true source of your contentment, well there's nothing to worry about. Cause He's not going anywhere. Finally, the last section here. So we have a little bit more time. I want to quickly kind of get a, maybe a really high level overview about contentment and its relationship to ambition. And maybe I'll do a followup thing, a blog post or something about this that goes a little bit more in depth. But as I've been thinking through these things, thinking about the importance of contentment, and how do I cultivate it, and how it's kind of like this awesome way to get the results of achieving my goals, which is kind of happiness, contentment, whatever satisfaction without actually achieving them—So as I've thought through all that, one of the things that keeps like ringing in my ear is, and maybe you're thinking this too, “If I become content with my present circumstances, is that going to like, just absolutely destroy my ambition? Does that mean I'm not going to really accomplish anything with my life?“ And I can see, you can see the rationale here. You think, “well, if I'm content, then I'm not going to need to get off the couch. I'm not going to strive for anything. I'm just of kind of float through life, you know, all happy, like just big, big kind of pleasant, smile on my face. And not really have any drive to do anything.“ So you might even be worried in that sense. If I become too content, maybe I'll stop being hungry. Maybe, you know, like, I don't know who says this, but I always see like the entrepreneur, like stuff on Instagram or like the memes and stuff. They're like always “stay hungry!” “You're a tiger!” I don't know if they say “you're a tiger,“ but I've seen that thing about “always stay hungry.“ And they're saying like, you know, “don't be satisfied because if you get satisfied, then you'll stop being ambitious. You'll stop climbing, you'll stop kinda clawing. And therefore you won't be successful.“ And you could see productivity-minded people hearing this and saying, “well, if I cultivate contentment, maybe I won't be ambitious. And maybe I won't succeed at things.“ But true Christian contentment doesn't make you into like a passive person who has really no desires to do anything, just like a big kind of flubber that just kind of oozes through life, but doesn't really try to achieve anything. No, it just gives you the right attitude toward ambition and goals and success. Because again, the Bible does not condemn ambition. It doesn't, it condemns vain ambition, Philippians 2:3–4, right? Vain ambition. But what that is is that's talking about selfishness, a selfish attitude that puts your own desires above others, and it doesn't seek to serve people that's what's condemned. And that is sort of that attitude you see there in James, which is “I'm going to make a profit. I'm going to do this. And we're going to, I'm going to go to this town, to this town and…” It's self, self, self, self, self that is condemned, but ambition itself, the desire to, to achieve something? No, that's not condemned. I mean, read the Proverbs. Far from killing ambition, actually Christian contentment puts you in the best possible position to meet the challenges of life. Even as you pursue your goals with an attitude of, “if the Lord wills.“ And this way, a productive Christian who is resting contentedly with the Lord is actually in the best position to be productive, to achieve things. Why? Because when you're content, you're operating from a position of peace, rather than desperate striving, right? You're not asking of your goals. You're not demanding of, of these things. You're not seeking that they would be the thing that made you happy. You're already happy already content in Christ. So you're able to seek these things with kind of this attitude of, “okay, if the Lord wills, we're going to go do this thing.“ And if, but if it doesn't work out, you, it doesn't destroy. You, you know, it might be hard, but your contentment wasn't from succeeding. That thing, it was from knowing and walking with Christ. And it also means when we're content that we're seeking to line up our goals with God's will, right? “If the Lord wills.” And that results in actually fewer frustrated plans. It's when we do that vain ambition thing where we're just kind of setting these goals irrespective of God, and we're kind of like, “God, can you please go ahead and, uh, bless this for me,“ right? You come to him afterwards and look for the stamp of approval. I made this huge plan. Irrespective, never thought about you once, but God it's gonna make me rich and now I'm going to pray about it so that you will a stamp of approval on it and make it happen. That's not the right way of going about it. But when you're content and you're drawing that contentment from knowing Christ, even the plans you make from the start, you're doing them in a way where you're seeking to honor God, where you're seeking to fulfill His will. Even the plans you make will be better when you're operating from contentment. Also, when you are operating from a place of contentment, you will be well equipped to meet the adversity that meets people in any endeavor. Whether you're starting a business or whatever you're doing, you'll understand that the Lord's love loves you and that He's sovereign over the circumstances. And so when trials arrive, you can meet them with contentment. And also when you're content, you're depending upon God's strength, not simply on your own strength or your intelligence or your creativity to overcome issues. When you're content, you're actually resting in God's strength and that gives you the ability to overcome things. So finally, I want to just kind of close with a little bit of a question that relates to this issue of contentment being the ultimate life hack. What is your ultimate ambition? And be honest with yourself, what is it you're really seeking out of life? You know, if someone asked you, what are your goals? What are the things you're after you might say, “Oh, I want to, I want to, um, you know, have just a great family that, you know, have three kids that love the Lord.“ It might be good things like that. Or, you know, “I wanna, I wanna start a business and make a million dollars.” Or you want to become a great photographer or something like that, right? You have these different goals. And my question is, what's your ultimate ambition? What is your ultimate ambition? And does this pop into your head when people ask you what your goals are? Because we're actually, we're told what our ultimate ambition is supposed to be, and that is to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. If that's our ultimate goal of what we want is to kind of God, what we want is to be righteous, we will succeed. That's a right goal. And we will succeed in that. Because it's at blessed. Jesus said, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied.“ That is a goal that will always be met. Those who seek righteousness. And if your life is built around honoring Christ, if it is built around seeking his kingdom and seeking his righteousness and wanting to honor Him and glorify Him with your life, whether kind of your sub goals under that are raising a family or being successful at work or doing these other things, as long as those really are just kind of sub goals—They're meant to be a vehicle by which you would honor Christ and glorify Him—that is an ambition that is worth pursuing. That is an ambition that is worthy of your effort and work and is not at cross purposes with God. And it is something which He will indeed bless over and over again. You'll find Him blessing it. And so I would encourage you to really take an honest look, what is it that I'm seeking in life? Why am I wanting to be more successful? Why am I trying to be more productive? Is it ultimately that I want to serve Christ and glorify him? And if it's not, do some soul work, spend some time with the Lord and get that straight. Because if your ambition is vain, if it's just for yourself, it's not going to be blessed. And I'll tell you what, it's not going to satisfy you because no contentment doesn't kill ambition. In fact, it is the ultimate life hack. Because when we're content in Christ, you're not deriving your happiness from future success. But from that settled, quiet knowledge that you are in Christ, your future is secure. And the work you do now is simply your opportunity to bring him glory while you're here. So we work and we work hard, but we always work with that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition. That's Christian contentment. And that is the ultimate life hack. Well, that's all I have for you this week. Please do. If you're not subscribed, go ahead and subscribe. Give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts if you listen on there, it helps other people find it. Check out the YouTube channel. And if you're interested in supporting the work of Redeeming Productivity, helping me to produce more of this stuff and even more videos and whatnot, please do consider supporting my work on Patreon. That's patreon.com/redeemingprod. And there'll be a link to that in the description. All right. Well, that's it. I will see you again here next week, but until I do remember this, that in whatever you do, do it well and do it all to the glory of God.

These days there are thousands of options when it comes to productivity tools. But one great debate still persists: Which is better, paper or digital productivity tools? I think there's a place for both. In this episode, I demonstrate that it's not a question of either/or, but rather of which/when. And I give some principles for choosing which productivity tasks are better done on paper and which are better done using apps. Links This episode is based in part on the blog post, Paper vs. Digital Productivity Tools.Checkout the LifeJournal that I mentioned in today's episode. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Transcript 00:00:08 - Welcome to the Redeeming Productivity Show. This is the podcast that helps Christians get more done and get it done like Christians. And I'm your host Reagan Rose.00:00:22 - Well, thanks for listening in. We've got an interesting episode for you today. When we talking about paper versus digital productivity tools and kind of the pros and cons of each and how you can sort of mix and match, uh, some paper planning tools with digital tools and even just kind of some high-level principles to think through what would be best for what types of activities, uh, productivity-wise. Um, but before I jump into that, just want to do the little preamble I always do, which is to say, if you're listening and you like this, please do subscribe to your favorite podcast thing. So you get notified if the next one, for example, if one doesn't come out on Monday, like normal and instead comes out way later in the week, like right now, uh, you will just get it in your podcast player. Well, I don't need to explain podcasts to you.00:01:16 - You're listening to one and also a special thank you to the Patreon supporters, guys. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast. Um, it is encouraging to me and helps me pay the bills to keep this going. And if any of you who are listening would like to become a patron supporter, throw a couple of bucks in the hat. Uh, it is patrion.com/redeeming prod. Okay, let's get into the meat of the episode. Um, so paper versus digital tools. So with productivity, there are, um, many, many tools available to us. Uh, the, you can go as simple as just a hit a, a to-do list or setting goals on a piece of paper, but, uh, so much of productivity is about what tools you use. And especially now in the digital era, there are countless types of tools you can use in the computer, countless apps, countless services, countless automation that you can use to increase your productivity.00:02:24 - And it can get a little bit overwhelming, to be honest. I've mentioned before that when I do as doing college ministry, I think even when I was a college student, I did, this is, I just had a little tiny notebook with a little tiny pen, and I would just write in there some boxes and some little tasks for the day. And I tick off the boxes, uh, to make sure I got everything done. I needed to do that day. And that was a productivity tool. It was small, it was rudimentary, but that was, that was all I did with it. Uh, and then after I read, um, David, Allen's getting things done, I realized, Oh, I'm basically using his sort of getting things done system, but not as smartly. And so then I was using the paper to record those tasks and, and migrate them to the next day, make sure that, that I had a place to capture everything and process it and, and put it into the right category.00:03:17 - And I was doing that all paper-wise. Now, though, fast forward to today, I suffer from a condition that doctors call shiny new tools syndrome. And that is, uh, my excuse for that is that I write and do a podcast on productivity. And so I can excuse to myself, my constant flooding from one tool to another, um, you know, each week, it seems like I'm telling you about some new app I'm using or some new tool for productivity. And that's because I am, I'm switching all the time with different aspects of my productivity. And this is my burden that I bear for you. Dear listener really I'd be highly would be doing this, even if I wasn't teaching on this and talking about these subjects, because again, it's, it's shiny new tool syndrome. A new app comes out and here I am first in line to grab it and try it and disrupt my whole well oiled machine of productivity systems.00:04:18 - But again, my burden to bear. Uh, but I do think that no matter what you do, there really isn't one productivity tool to, um, to rule them all. Um, and in the darkness behind them, because there's just so many different things you do, and there's different personality types. And I just find that there, there are some things I like to do a certain way, and there's some things I like to do a different way. And that's okay. Um, for example, you know, like right now, there are a lot of things that I do digitally, but there's a lot of things I do on paper. Like I, I still keep a, my, my personal journal, um, on paper. Um, and while I manage my like longterm tasks and things like that in apps each day, I manage the tasks for the day on a piece of paper.00:05:10 - And there's just something about putting pen on paper there that I find focusing. And so I just think no matter what, you're going to use a hybrid of tools and some of those may be paper and some of those may be digital. I don't think it's a question of which is better. Should I use a digital productivity system or a paper system? Um, they're all, there are all in one systems for either one of those, right? I mean, um, the bullet journal is probably the closest thing I can think of that actually. Uh, has you doing everything on paper, like keeping calendars and reminders and events and things like that, all in one spot, along with your tasks? Um, I I've done bullet journaling before. I still do some kind of hybrid approach to it, but I really hate the idea of keeping calendars in a paper planner, because what if I don't have it?00:06:05 - I mean, it's a big notebook. I don't, I'm not going to wear cargo shorts everywhere. I'll tell you that much right now with a big planner in the, in the pocket. I'm probably not going to wear cargo shorts at all. It's my wife would leave me. Um, so anyway, my point is really just pros and cons to all those things. And I use a variety of tools right now, and I probably all always will. Um, there's also, uh, some cool tools that exist right now that have never existed before I've mentioned software stuff. I would, did want to tell you about one that I'm about to start using. I just wanted to give kind of a, a plug for, uh, because it's very cool, a very well designed. Um, and it's a, it's a paper planner. So in the past, I've used, you may have have ads for these that you've seen, but I've, I've used these all before the self journal, which is a really cool little paper daily planner time blocking thing, the full focus planner, which is something Michael Hyatt came out with.00:07:04 - I've used that before. Um, didn't love it. Didn't hate it just wasn't for me, but now I have an actually holding one right now. Um, the life journal is a very cool, um, like planner journal. It's a 13-week planner that helps you focus on not just like your tasks and stuff, but, uh, spiritual disciplines. It's built around goal setting and, and productivity, all that in one. And it's neat. It's got like prompts for, um, what you read in the scripture today. Uh, it's got a spot where you can map out your daily schedule. What are your top three tasks? Um, how are you applying what you read in scripture? Things like that it's even got a spot, um, for taking notes on sermons and podcast that you're listening to. Um, it's just a really cool all in one type journal for a Christian.00:07:53 - And these are, this is really neat. I'm about to start in this. I'm gonna do 13 weeks with it and try it out. I'll tell you at the end, um, my impressions on it, but I definitely even from first blush, I recommend it cause there are types of tools in here that I've used before and other, uh, paper planners that I've loved. Um, but this one's specifically, you know, kind of faith-based as I recommend that to you. If you go to gospel focused.com, um, you can pick one up there, you can read more about it, um, and, uh, try that out, but, okay. Let's get philosophical here for a minute. Um, as I've used different tools over the years here is kind of the key distinction that is emerged in my mind between digital and paper productivity tools. And then I'll kind of flesh it out a little bit.00:08:46 - So the key distinction is that digital is for storing paper is for processing. So I'm going to, I'm going to build on that a little bit, but this is, this is kind of like I could, you know, distill it, reduce it down to it's a key difference. Digital is for storing papers for processing. Okay. So let's, uh, let's look at the digital side of that real quick. So I say that the, the pro that digital brings to the table, the thing that it's best at that it is better than paper at is storing. Um, and what I mean by that is three things, persistent storage, easily accessible storage. And even as it comes to reminders, the reliability of the things you read that you store in there that they'll come back to you, of course, if I took a hand written note, it is technically, you know, stored it's in a notebook somewhere, but, uh, it's not the best way to store information.00:09:50 - I think computers are better at this because I can use a find function or I can, uh, have automated ways for the, for the software to re present to me information from the past. Uh, in fact, there's a great app I'm using right now, it's called read wise. And if you take highlights in Kindle or like on Instapaper or pocket or something like that, you can hook it up to read wise, realize we'll take all of those highlights. And then each day it sends you like a daily digest of old highlights. And so I think I have mine set up, it sends me five a day and every morning, and that's kind of been part of my morning routine. I get this little email and it has five highlights from old books that I've read or old articles and things that I thought interesting. And a lot of it's from years and years ago, because I've been reading Kindle books for years.00:10:38 - And I just love that. It's such a cool little way to remind it of old insights. I might jump into the book and read the context and be like, Oh yeah, that was, that was fascinating. Um, but that I think is a good example of digital storage. Uh, being able to remind you of something resurfacing things, uh, from the past in an automatic way, which I would not have found. I mean, some of those books, I don't even remember reading. Um, so that, that thing is a good, good example there read wise is the name of that app. Do you wanna check it out? Um, but the main thing with digital storage is that is persistent. Um, it is always there. You're not, it's not going to go away. Um, as long as you know, all the servers don't die, your computer doesn't explode and the EMP doesn't blow up.00:11:29 - Um, but that's kind of was one of the issues when I was doing bullet journaling, was that even though I was, you know, staying on top of a logging, everything each day, managing like longterm tasks, really gummed everything up. I I'd be transferring things from log to log from day to day. And if I, if I wasn't good about like reviewing my planner every week and every day, things would get forgotten. Sometimes they get left behind or sometimes they'd just be following me around for weeks and I'd have to hand copy them. Um, and also I kept finding that the more things I put in the planner, the more I lost, uh, if I, if I didn't keep it simple, uh, the complexity would, would go out to control much faster than if I use digital tools. Um, but I kept a good index, but even then I found myself missing that ability.00:12:18 - I haven't a computer to do like a command F on my Mac and find a specific note or find a keyword that I remember about something. So there's that speed. That was, that was lost. Um, so that's, what's cool about digital everything's index. Everything's searchable. I can organize, I can reorganize to my heart's content. And I have confidence that if I put something in my digital storage tools, uh, and everything being equal, I'll be able to find it again. And so, so another part of that is so it's persistent, but digital storage is also easily accessible. I just mentioned the command F thing that you can find things within there. Um, make sure you don't lose, um, the things that you've stored, but it's also easily accessible in the sense that, like I mentioned before, you don't have to carry around a giant notebook with you, um, or hundreds of giant notebooks.00:13:10 - If you have years of information that you've been storing, uh, your phone, your, a little smartphone has everything from your Evernote or your notion, or even your file system like on Dropbox or, or, or, um, or iCloud right at your fingertips. And that's, I think is a huge advantage of digital, you know, we might criticize it that it's distracting having these phones and, and it's tough to have all the world's information at your fingertips, but man, it is pretty nice to know that you can get at stuff you've put in your digital systems anywhere, anytime you need to. Um, so that's what I like. And I, I look for that in productivity apps, something that syncs across all my devices, um, cause I don't always have my computer with me. And then finally, just on the subject of digital for storing, there's just, uh, what I would call reliable reminders.00:14:03 - Um, you can you, even, if you keep a calendar on a digital tool, the fact is there are no notifications built into your notebook. Even the coolest, even FranklinCovey planners don't have notifications built into their paper planner calendars. Why? Well, because that's just the way the world works. It's not possible, but digital tools can remind me 15 minutes before a meeting that I need to, you know, get up and go. Um, they, they can remind me with, with tasks that, Hey, you said that you were going to mow the lawn this weekend and I don't have to think about it, but it just pops up on, on Saturday morning. I'm like, okay, that's, that's the task for the day. You know what I mean? Like all of that automation type stuff that's available with digital tools not available on paper. And so I think that that's definitely, um, a digital has the edge on paper in that regard.00:14:59 - Um, but, and this is what I want to stress is that doesn't mean that paper is good for nothing. I, like I mentioned the beginning, I still use a physical paper notebook, uh, in my productivity arsenal. I still use it to take notes. I still use it to plan my, my individual days. And I'm about to use it for a bunch of stuff. When I jump into this life journal that I have here. Um, and that's because paper has a benefits that digital does not. Um, and let me, let me pause to make it even broader point just about life, the universe and everything there is, I think in modern thought this, this feeling that as we make, quote, unquote, progress, that it is always better. Um, and I think I can have this attitude sometimes that digital is always better than something that is, um, not digital and that progress always means improvement.00:15:51 - It doesn't technology does not always make things better. Sometimes for example, it is better that you go slower with something and you say, well, there's digital thing. Maybe it makes it so much easier, so much faster to do and do X, Y, or Z. Um, and so therefore it's better. Maybe there's a reason that it's slower. Uh, maybe there's a reason that, um, it takes a long time to dig a fence post hole and you don't necessarily need a giant machine to do it. Um, that was a metaphor. So papers for processing. This is my, my, uh, my, my key principle on the other side of it is data digitals for storage papers for processing. Okay. It can do things that digital can't do. Um, I think that this is, I have found no way around this with digital tools, but there is something about when I use a nice pen and a piece of paper that just makes the creative juices flow.00:16:56 - Um, and here's kind of some of the reasons I think that this is better. I think that paper is better for processing ideas. Uh, one is because paper's disposable. Um, now that goes against kind of what I'd said before about digital being better because for storage, but when it comes to processing information or thinking, I should say, um, the fact that paper is transient by nature, uh, helps me, at least with my paralysis of analysis, I have, uh, a tendency towards perfectionism. And I feel like if I'm doing it on a computer, I don't know why, but I have to get it exactly right. But doing, working out some thoughts on a piece of paper first that I, that I know I'm going to throw away kinda helps me with that because I'm like, it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm just going to throw this in the waste bin, the waste bin, I'm an American I'm going to throw in the trash can waistband.00:17:50 - Um, so knowing that whatever I jot down is not being committed to some eternal digital archive that gives me the freedom to think with fewer boundaries. Um, and I even enjoy it. I love like, you know, the classic trope of, uh, of the writer crinkling up the piece of paper and throwing it in the, in the garbage I like that because it's like, it's gone now paper because paper's disposable. It just makes it a better tool for processing thoughts. Um, second with that is paper's good for processing because paper slows you down. I'm thinking a, something that can't be rushed. Uh, the power of, of, of paper is that when you have to write it out by hand, it takes longer. And I've, I've heard this. Um, my pastor, John MacArthur has said this, and I've probably mentioned it here on this podcast before, but he says that, well, I'll say that he repeat prepares his sermons.00:18:52 - They're hour-long sermons. He prepares them with a fountain pen and a piece of paper. And he's been doing that his whole life, which is nuts. He doesn't type it out on a computer or anything. It's just handwritten things and it is slower. And he said that it's slower, um, than if he would, would use a computer. But he says, it's a good thing because it slows them down. That's why he uses a fountain pen is he has to stop and refill it. And, and there's this, um, slowing down that helps with thinking to aid that process. And I have experienced this too, like as a writer, um, you kind of think, well, writing is getting as many words as possible onto the page each day. So you can like keep writing the most right writing is writing. But writing is really just thinking in the same way with, with sermon preparation, sermon preparation.00:19:46 - Isn't just about getting the words on the paper. It's about getting the right words on the paper. It's about thinking and processing and then getting that out there in a crystallized form. And so speed of getting information onto a document is not necessarily the end all be all. It's not necessarily progress that you were able to type. I don't know, a thousand words a minute. That's probably is a lot. I don't know, actually, what is a lot of words per minute, but it's not, it's not necessarily progress that you were able to put the most words onto the computer because your fingers went a mile a minute. It's more important that you put the right words. And so paper, I do, I think it has a leg up on, um, digital tools because it makes you go slower and think so. Yeah. Clacking on the keyboard enables me to write faster.00:20:37 - That's a fact, but it does not necessarily mean that I'm writing more thoughtfully. So paper can help you with that, not to get out of yourself. And then finally with paper, um, in this under the sub heading of papers for processing, is that right? Paper is better for processing than digital because it just stroll. I use distractions, absolutely obliterates them. Um, when I opened up my computer, that is the last thing I do every morning. Um, because that is just inviting problems. If you're, if you're, um, if your phone or your computer or your iPad or whatever it is you're using, that has wifi, it has email, it has social media. It has all these distractions. Even if you turn all those things off, you kind of know they're there. And that too is distracting. Um, uh, actually researchers have found this, that people are distracted even by the, whether or not their phone is notifying them.00:21:36 - The fact that their phone could notify them is distracting to them. If that makes sense. And the great thing about paper that I think is a really great feature of paper, is that it doesn't have wifi. It doesn't have a Bluetooth antenna, it doesn't have notifications. And so like with those, uh, features or lack of features, I think there's a massive advantage. And so I, if I really want to focus, I want to do some, some thinking. I want to do that on paper because I don't want to be interrupted. Um, and like I said, that's in, in the morning, the last thing I do is open my computer. I leave my phone on the little charger next to my bedside. When I leave, uh, to get up in the morning, I don't look at my phone at all, if I'm being good and I come out to the kitchen, I open up my journal.00:22:21 - I write in my journal, I read my Bible. I pray, I do all that stuff. And it only, at the end of that, do I open up my computer? Because oftentimes when I opened that computer, I ended up going down the rabbit hole. I'm not as productive as I want to be. And, um, sometimes you're gonna end up throwing my whole day into disarray because some email will come through that I have to deal with them. And so that's why I delay it. And that's why stick to paper stuff initially, so that I don't lose that time of focus, that time of thinking that time of really being focused and, uh, being with the Lord as I, as I studied his word. And I, um, and I pray, so paper is awesome because I used to lie to you from those distractions. And thus helps you to process your thoughts better than you can with digital tools, that invite distraction.00:23:12 - So that is it. I hope that's somewhat helpful for you. Those are kind of the, the big thing. That's all I wanted to share with you today is that, Hey, there is a place for paper tools. There's a place for digital tools. You don't have to do everything with one productivity tool. Um, and big picture. My conclusion is that the great distinction between these two is that digital is really good at storing paper is really good for processing. If you think about those, them in those terms, that might help you to build out your own productivity arsenal. Um, and that is something that's going to look different from everybody. I think it's a personal thing, what apps you like, uh, and what tools you use and whether you're more paper geared or digital geared, but feel free to mix and match. And, um, maybe some of those principles will help you as you think through it. Well, that's all I have for you today. Thanks so much for listening. I'm sorry. Again, this is coming out so late in the week, it has been a crazy couple of weeks. Um, but, uh, it's all good and glad to be back with you. And, um, I will see you again here next week, but until I do remember this in whatever you do, do it well and do it all to the glory of God.

In this episode, Reagan discusses how Christians can create a strategy for practicing the "one another" commands of Scripture. He talks about the pros and cons of different forms of communication, creating a "Personal CRM", and why letter writing is still relevant. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

Fresh back from vacation, Reagan shares some musings on the nature of Christian productivity, insights from the book of Ecclesiastes, "Chronological Optimism," and changes he's making in life to accommodate a broadening understanding of personal productivity. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

What if you had the ability to perfectly recall anything you had ever learned? Imagine what you could do for the Kingdom! Well, as far as I know, that's not possible yet but in this week's episode, I talk about the subject of how we organize our notes into a knowledge management system. I cover some of the different approaches to the subject as well as some of the software options that are available. I also discuss the theological ramifications of knowledge management and what it means for Christians to develop a "second brain." Links Mentioned in this Episode ZettelkastenEvernoteNotion, my review of Notion, how I use NotionObsidianRoam Research Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

In this week's episode, I reflect on a recent interview with John Piper in which he offered up seven lessons on productivity that he's learned over the years. Links Mentioned in this Episode Seven Lessons for Productivity from John Piper on Desiring GodThis week on the blog: Unconfessed Sin Is Killing Your ProductivityEp. 44 - Making the Most of Motivation Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

In this episode, I talk about why you should plan your day, what the elements of a good day plan are, and a step-by-step of how I plan my day each morning. Links Mentioned in this Episode Listen to my interview with James Parker in Episode 37Read Emily Maxson's article on the Bullet Journal MethodCheck out Notion, my favorite all-in-one productivity appI've really been enjoying using the app NotePlan 2 to keep a digital Bullet Journal Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

In this episode, I get more personal and share how the Lord saved me, and how He used trials to teach me the importance of cherishing His Word and making the most of this brief life. Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter.⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

We all have those days where we wake up feeling energized and motivated. But no sooner do we launch into our work than the motivation is gone again. The problem with bursts of motivation is that they are elusive and fickle. So, how can we find ways to work even when we aren't feeling overly motivated, and make the most of motivation when it does come? Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter.⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

We live in an age where true friendship is hard to find. But what does the Bible say makes for a true friend? And how can deep friendships make us more productive in bringing glory to God? Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter.⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

It seems that every week brings more alarming news. So, how can we stay focused on being good stewards of our responsibilities when the world seems to be falling apart around us? Sign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter.⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

In this episode, I discuss the book Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth by Douglas Wilson. I give you my top takeaways as well as my own thoughts on Wilson's unique approach to Christian productivity. Links Sponsor: Today's episode is brought to you by Words of Hope, a 5-minute daily devotional podcast.Get the book Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth.Sign-up for our twice-weekly Redeeming Productivity Newsletter.If you like what I'm doing with this podcast, consider supporting my work on Patreon where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content.

Do you constantly put things off until the last minute? Can you not focus unless there's a deadline? Do you find that stress is the only thing that motivates you? Then you might be an urgency addict. In episode 35 of the Redeeming Productivity Show we talk about the problems of being addicted to urgency, and how Christians can overcome this crutch. Sign-up for The Redeeming Productivity Newsletter to get more help on your journey to become a productive Christian: https://redeemingproductivity.com/newsletter I also wrote an article on this subject. Check out That Drug Urgency.

Everyone is feeling the effects of COVID-19 and the quarantine. Some are feeling it in life-and-death trials or financial hardships. Others are becoming lonely or just plain bored from being stuck at home. And all of us are feeling the tension of the uncertainty. In any trial, big or small, the temptation to complain and grow discontent is powerful. So how can Christians be content in the midst of a crisis? That's what we talk about in this, episode 34 of The Redeeming Productivity Show. Sign-up for The Redeeming Productivity Newsletter to get more help on your journey to become a productive Christian.Support the work of Redeeming Productivity on Patreon.