I’m grateful to have received a review copy of Matthew Perman’s new book, released today, What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. I’ve been reading Matthew’s blog for at least a couple of years and have always found his writing about productivity to be from a refreshingly thorough Biblical perspective. I’m just now digging into the book and I’m sure this will be a great read. I’ll likely be sharing more here as I have more time with the book but for now I’ll share with you what I think is the best endorsement you’ll find for this new book; it’s from John Piper’s forward to the book:
This book is simply extraordinary.
This is largely because of the way God has wired Matt Perman. His mind is saturated with biblical truth, and he is passionate, sometimes to a fault (as you will see in his personal stories), about being effective for the glory of Christ.
Those two traits have combined to produce a God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated book that, without blinking, gets into stuff like Al Mohler’s midnight productivity and Seth Godin’s method for carving out time for work that matters. (Read the whole forward here.)
UPDATE: Here are a few standout quotes from my early reading…
Productivity is about effectiveness first, not efficiency.
Ironically, however, peace of mind results when the good of others, and not our own peace of mind, is our first aim.
More and more, productivity is about intangibles — relationships developed, connections made, and things learned.
…increasing your efficiency can actually backfire and make things worse. This is because when you become more efficient, you tend to do more things — and if you aren’t doing the right things in the first place, you have just become an expert at doing more of what doesn’t need to be done at all.