Your weekly roundup of insights and resources to help you get more done for the glory of God.
In Today’s Issue:
- Focus on the Schedule, Not the To-Do List
- What the Bible Says About Wealth
- Are You a Monk or Missionary on Social Media?
- Should My Construction Company Help Build a Casino?
- My Favorite Screenshot App for Mac
Dear steward,
A new month can feel like a fresh start. But unfortunately, our undone to-do lists don’t automatically reset at the turn of the calendar. Let me offer you one tip for breaking free from to-do list overwhelm.
Focus on the schedule, not on the list.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of to-do lists. I have a whole chapter in my book on how to use them more effectively. But I’ve learned that defining success by the to-do list can sometimes be counter productive.
There’s a real power to getting stuff out of our heads and onto paper, but once it’s written down everything on the page starts to look equally important. “Change the lightbulb” looks exactly the same as “write that book.” Even though one might take you 5 minutes and the other a year.
If you judge the success of your day by whether you finish every triviality on your list, of course, you’re going to fall short. But worse still, by having a list of tasks both important and unimportant next to each other, you will often choose the easier (but less important) things to work on. And the most important stuff will keep getting bounced to tomorrow.
If you want to master distraction, you have to start by mastering your schedule. – Nir Eyal
So keep the to-do list, and keep chipping away at it, but the most important projects need to live somewhere else—on your calendar.
Let the stuff on your to-do list be the 80% of tasks that don’t really matter. But reserve your calendar for the 20% that truly move the needle. Then judge whether you had a successful day or not by whether you put in the time you planned for those scheduled activities, not by the number of boxes you checked on a sticky note.
Now, let’s dive into this week’s link roundup…
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Shortform
Reading a book is a big investment, so you want to make sure you choose carefully. That’s why I use book summaries to preview nonfiction books before I commit to reading them.
But there are so many book summary apps out there these days. So, let me tell you real quick why I think Shortform is the best of them.
Shortform provides guides and summaries of the best nonfiction books. Whether it’s a personal development book like Atomic Habits by James Clear or Christian books like The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer, Shortform has you covered.
But Shortform takes it deeper than other book summary apps.
They provide in-depth chapter breakdowns, comparing the book’s arguments to what other authors say on the same topic. The analysis is top-notch and actually makes you think. No joke, I’ve had a couple of times where I read the summaries for a book I’d already read, and I thought the Shortform summary was actually better than the book itself!
So, if you want to save time and get the best book summary app out there, check out Shortform.
You can get a 20% discount using my link: shortform.com/reagan
Interested in sponsoring the newsletter?
THE ROUNDUP
The best links I found this week
The Issue of Wealth in the Bible (4 mins)
Dr. David Kotter / Institute for Faith, Work & Economics
This is a fascinating insight into the positive and negative ways the Bible talks about the subject of wealth.
At first glance, even the Bible seems to provide contradictory assessments about wealth. For example, Israel’s prophets decried the rich as unrighteous, yet the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob individually possessed great wealth. Jesus commanded the rich young ruler to sell all of his possessions and give to the poor, yet Jesus himself rose out of a tomb provided by the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea.
Monk or Missionary: These are the only options now. (6 mins)
Ian Harber / Endeavor
While I myself have quit social media for a variety of reasons, I don’t think it’s as simple as “social media bad” or “social media good.” I very much appreciate how many believers continue to use these platforms to great, God-glorifying effect.
It seems to me that there are going to be two dominant postures toward social media moving forward, both legitimate and both necessary. They are monks and missionaries.
I really like this simple dichotomy for thinking about it. It’s a challenge to be intentional with your social media use or non use. Are you a monk or a missionary?
Should My Construction Company Help Build a Casino? (11 mins)
John Piper / Desiring God
This is an interesting question, and Piper offers some good principles to consider when facing ethical dilemmas with your work.
In general, I want to encourage builders and workers not to contribute to structures devoted to anti-Christian beliefs and practices. But I realize that the complexities of various situations are such that we should be very careful not to pass judgment on a brother’s effort to make a biblically informed, conscientious decision.
SOMETHING I LIKE
CleanShot X
Whether I’m creating productivity tutorials in the Academy or showing off a cool app in this newsletter, I take a lot of screenshots on my mac. And I’ve often found the process kind of cumbersome—especially if I need to mark up the images I take.
A couple of years ago I started using CleanShot X on the recommendation of a friend, and I’ve never looked back.
Here’s a few of the features I use the most:
- Screen capture history
- Instant image markup (arrows, text, blur sensitive info, etc.)
- Screen recording (you can even make gifs)
- Make images prettier (add backgrounds, shadows, rounded corners, etc.)
If you take a lot of screenshots, or need to mark up images, CleanShot X is a great addition to your mac’s app bar.
WHAT’S NEW
On Redeeming Productivity
How to Become a Great Redeemer of Time (6 mins)
Your reputation says a lot about you. What would it look like if you were known we as someone who used their time wisely?
A DOSE OF WISDOM
Quote of the Week
Responsibility is the ability to respond as God says man should respond to every life situation, in spite of difficulties.
Jay Adams
