Make the Most of Your Productivity E-Book

Ana Ávila

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Gospel Coalition
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

6 Powerful, God-Honoring Principles to Increase Productivity Many people today idolize achievement, driven by validation, status, or financial gain. Others lack self-discipline and motivation altogether. How can Christians pursue healthy, biblical goal-setting that avoids extremes?   In this user-friendly guide, Ana Ávila teaches 6 principles to help you honor God with all you have and reflect his character through your creativity. Along with a gospel-centered perspective on life, you'll learn skills to increase efficiency, such as forming healthy habits, using productivity tools, creating tasks and projects, and more. Whether you are achievement-oriented or struggle with discipline, Ávila will show you how to reorient your time, boundaries, decisions, focus, habits, and tools around God's main design for productivity: serving him and helping others. - A Great Introduction to Productivity: Explains how to effectively steward time, resources, and wisdom from a biblical perspective - Interactive: Each chapter ends with questions for reflection and action steps - Practical Life Skills: Includes sample schedules, tips for forming healthy habits, and more - Previously Published in Spanish

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“We’re all stewards of the time, abilities, and opportunities God has entrusted to us. But how do we steward these well when there are so many distractions and so many drains on our focus and energy? Ana Ávila shows us how in this simple yet profound book. Ávila applies godly wisdom to living out our ordinary days on purpose so that we can avoid not only wasting our time but wasting our lives.”

Nancy Guthrie, author; Bible teacher

“Ana Ávila’s enthusiasm for productivity for Jesus’s sake is contagious. She takes into account both our eternally focused goals and our earthbound, creaturely limitations. This book is a refreshing and friendly coach for readers who want to make the most of the time they’ve been given.”

Gloria Furman, author, Labor with Hope and Missional Motherhood

“I have never read a book on productivity until now. Learning about planning, scheduling, and goal setting was as appealing to me as it is for a young child to go to the doctor for a shot. I am a classic improviser. How helpful it would have been to read this little treasure twenty years ago! I love how Ávila weaves the gospel into every page—she makes it clear to us that productivity isn’t about achieving but loving. I finished this book confident that God accepts me because of Christ’s perfect performance and that as I grow in awe of this truth, I will pour out my love to him and it will be seen in how I use my time.”

Aixa de López, author, Forever: What Adoption Teaches Us about the Father’s Heart

“In Make the Most of Your Productivity, Ana Ávila provides us with a precise definition of productivity, the proper motivation to support productivity, and a variety of practical tools that can help us grow in our productivity not only for our own sake but also for the sake of others. She does so in a way that is profound in theology yet simple in application. Everyone should read this book in order to learn how to better manage the most valuable resource they have: time.”

Cole Brown, author The Gospel Is: Defining the Most Important Message in the World

“A lot of writing on productivity lacks personal introspection and focuses more on tasks than motives. In this book, Ana Ávila offers us a treasure that not only helps us with productivity-related actions but also helps us reflect on the whys and therefores of our productivity. Ávila reminds us that productivity is first and foremost a matter of loving God and neighbor. If you can’t focus on what you should, this book is for you. If you think productivity is simply ‘getting a lot done,’ this book is for you. If you think productivity isn’t important to God, this book is also for you. It is for every person who wants to make good use of their life for the glory of God and the good of their neighbor.”

Justin Burkholder, author, Sobre la roca: Un modelo para iglesias que plantan iglesias

“Wise people follow good advice, but fools say they will do things and never follow through. I thank God for the wisdom he has given Ana Ávila because she has not only been able to listen to good advice but has also put it into practice. And now, with humility and skill, she has written a book that is suggested (even required!) reading for Christians who want to do God’s will in their work and daily life. However, there is something else. I sense that this book can be of vital help to churches and ministries that want to honor God in ways that have measurable results. Of course, the things we do are secondary to who we are, but as Ávila shows us in this book, if we want to glorify God with all that we are, we will seek to be wise in all that we do. May God raise up more authors to serve the church. I am already looking forward to reading the next book from Ávila’s pen.”

Jairo Namnún, Executive Director, Coalición por el Evangelio

Make the Most of Your Productivity

Make the Most of Your Productivity

A Guide to Honoring God with Your Time

Ana Ávila

Make the Most of Your Productivity: A Guide to Honoring God with Your Time

© 2024 by Ana Ávila

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

Originally published as Aprovecha bien el tiempo (2020) by the Nelson Group in Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America. Used by permission. Published by arrangement with HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc. Translated into English by Jeffrey Stevenson.

Cover design: Faceout Studio, Molly von Borstel

Cover image: Shutterstock

First printing 2024

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9109-9 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9111-2 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9110-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ávila, Ana, 1992-author.

Title: Make the most of your productivity : a guide to honoring God with your time / Ana Ávila.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023024212 (print) | LCCN 2023024213 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433591099 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433591105 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433591112 (epub)  

Subjects: LCSH: Productivity accounting. | Women—Economic conditions. | Christian women.

Classification: LCC HF5686.P86 A74 2024  (print) | LCC HF5686.P86  (ebook) | DDC 657.082—dc23/eng/20230919

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023024212

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023024213

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2024-01-18 04:10:18 PM

For Uriel

Contents

Part 1: Foundations

1  A Call for Everyone

2  For the Love of God and Others

3  A Matter of Character

Part 2: Principles

4  Time

5  Limits

6  Decisions

7  Focus

8  Habits

9  Tools

Part 3: Practices

10  Align Your Life

11  Plan Your Week

12  Make the Most of Your Day

Closing Words

Acknowledgments

General Index

Scripture Index

Part 1

Foundations

1

A Call for Everyone

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:31

My quarter-life crisis came a little earlier than expected. I was twenty-three years old and sure of one thing: I was a failure. Staring at the ceiling of my room with tears in my eyes, I thought of all those people who at my age had already changed the world. Blaise Pascal invented the mechanical calculator at the age of nineteen. Mozart composed his first piece of music at the age of five. After teaching herself with her grandfather’s books, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was already recognized for her philosophy in her adolescence. What about me? What did I have to show that my more than two decades on the planet had not been anything but a waste of time and space? Absolutely nothing.

Maybe you can relate to the feeling: You work all the time, but you feel like you never accomplish anything. You haven’t won the Nobel Prize. Your bank account is a little embarrassing. You follow all the dating advice, but singleness does not want to let go of you.

Or maybe you find yourself at the other extreme. You have never given much thought to achieving great things. You face life as it comes. Plans are not your thing. You suddenly look around and wonder, “How did I get here? Surely there must be more to life than just floating through it.”

In this book we will discover that yes, there is much more for us than just floating through life. But we will also discover that this something else is very different from what we usually expect. Our lives are not valuable because of all the things we accomplish; our lives are valuable because of all the things God has accomplished on our behalf. Once we understand that, we are free to be truly productive.

What Is Productivity?

In his formidable satire The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis warns us that “there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”1 These kinds of errors—equal and opposite ones—are our favorites as human beings in virtually every aspect of life, including productivity.

During my quarter-life crisis, I fell into one of two extremes. I thought I was not being productive (or that my productivity was useless) because I was not accomplishing “great things.” I would set a goal, convinced that by reaching it I would become the person I had always dreamed of being. But one of two outcomes always came about. Either I didn’t reach my goal and crumbled, or I reached it and realized that it wasn’t enough—I had to achieve even more.

At the other extreme are those who think productivity is irrelevant. They think that their life belongs to them and therefore they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, without anyone criticizing them for doing so. They deal with what comes up when it comes up—and if they don’t want to deal with something, they just don’t, and that’s the end of the story.

The main problem is that we have an erroneous idea of what it means to be productive. Productivity is a concept that has its origins in the economic sciences and refers to a system’s efficiency of production. It has to do with the relationship between the quantity of products that are made and the quantity of resources invested in producing them. In using this word to describe time management and organization, we have come to think that personal productivity simply means getting a lot done in a short amount of time.

We could try to eliminate the word “productivity,” but we probably won’t succeed, at least in the near future. For now, it will suffice to understand it differently. I like how Tim Challies defines the concept in his book Do More Better: “Productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God.”2

I would summarize it like this: the productive life is a life that seeks to honor God with all that you have. This means that productivity isn’t just for big executives with seven meetings scheduled every day or for students overwhelmed by the typical college workload. A productive life applies to them and also to the housewife with three small children and unpredictable days, the retired grandfather who isn’t quite sure what to do with his time, the nurse who works long shifts and lives one day at a time, and the janitor who has been cleaning the same building for fifteen years. Productivity is for everyone because we all have gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm. A productive person is someone who takes whatever resources they have (regardless of whether they are many or few, whether they are valued or overlooked) and seeks to use them to fulfill the purpose for which they were put on earth.

A cup is a good cup only to the extent that it fulfills the purpose for which it was designed: to hold liquid for drinking. We can say something similar about human beings. People live a good life, a productive life, only to the extent that they fulfill the purpose for which they were designed. This truth is intuitive for most people. Regardless of who they are and where they come from, at one time or another everyone has asked themselves, Why am I here? The most common question for children is, What do you want to be when you grow up? The idea that we are on earth for a good reason and that we have a purpose to fulfill is strongly rooted in the human heart. The problem arises when we don’t know what that good reason is or how to discover our purpose. We wander through life leaning hopelessly toward one of two extremes of false productivity: working frantically for the wrong reasons or being passively carried along by circumstances.

This hunger for purpose isn’t part of who we are by chance. The desire to know why we are here points to the fact that there is someone who can give us the answer. Like Mary Shelley’s creature, we all desperately search for our maker. Fortunately, unlike Victor Frankenstein, the true Creator does not hide from us in disgust. He has revealed himself and revealed a lot about the reason he created us.

A Christian Perspective on Productivity

When we think of productivity from a Christian perspective, the first thing that might come to mind is the book of Proverbs. This book, which offers us wisdom, is full of warnings about laziness as well as exhortations to work diligently. And of course, reading Proverbs can give us many ideas on how to live a life that honors God by making good use of our time. However, it’s a mistake to think that this is the only place in Scripture that provides wisdom regarding productivity. If we pay close attention, we will realize that the whole story of the Bible informs us about how we can live to honor the God who made us.

Created to Create

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen. 1:1)

Why is there something instead of nothing? This is one of the most important questions that human beings have asked themselves since the beginning of history. Scripture reveals the answer in its first line: because in the beginning, God—a being that is outside of space and time, inconceivably free from the limitations of the laws of physics—spoke. And the world came into being.

In the beginning, God created everything. And he created everything good. He made a garden in which he placed two gardeners made in his image to tend it and to make it grow and prosper. He gave man and woman everything they needed to live in communion with him, to be satisfied as they fulfilled their purpose to create because they were made in the image of the Creator.

However, this was not enough for the gardeners. Even though they had work to do and everything they needed to do it well, they decided to direct their gaze toward the forbidden. They decided to question the Creator and, instead of tending to creation according to his will, they decided to use it as they pleased.

Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, and they turned their backs on God. Then, they died. They were expelled from the garden, the place they had been created to care for. What once would have been perfect joy would now require sweat, blood, and tears. Filling the land and making it flourish would not be easy, but it would still be their job.

We have followed their example. Every chance we have, we turn our backs on God. We shake our fist at heaven, challenging God and saying that our way of doing things is better. We do this not by eating forbidden fruits but by lying, coveting, envying—wasting our lives instead of living to reflect the character of the one who made us.

Although distorted by sin, the image that God placed in human beings is still in our hearts. Imperfectly and in an imperfect world, we create to show the world who the Creator is. When a lawyer defends the innocent, he is showing the justice of the one who defines what good is. When a mother coos to her child, she reflects the care of the perfect Father. When a janitor cleans a room, he shows that the God who designed the universe is a God of order. All work, paid or unpaid, public or private, is an opportunity to make the image of the one who created and sustains the world shine.

So we still have a mission. In fact, we have two.

Reached to Reach

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. (Matt. 28:19)

God was not going to leave things as he found them in Genesis 3. He wants us back in close relationship with him. But how could a completely perfect God allow such impure beings as us back into his presence? Just as darkness cannot remain in light, so is our evil incompatible with the source of all that is good. The righteous one can’t sweep sin under the rug and pretend it’s not there.

There was only one solution. So God did the unthinkable: he took the form of a man and came to walk among us. He did it to show us what human beings look like when they perfectly reflect his image. Moreover, showing his perfect love and justice, Jesus died on a cross to take the blame that belonged to us. We would never have been able to pay off the sin debt that we owed to the Creator. He did it himself. Justice is fulfilled and darkness is dispelled from the hearts of those who repent of their wickedness and embrace what Jesus did on the cross as the only thing that can save them. Christ is the only one who can put us in right standing before God; he is the only one who can take us back to the Father.

Today we continue to fill the earth and make it flourish. However, as we work, we also proclaim the name of the one who gave himself on our behalf and taught us to walk in the truth, to walk in him. As we nurture the world that God has given us, we make disciples of all nations. God reached us in order that we might reach others. We were saved to save. That is our new mission. Every believer should live fulfilling this task, from the elderly woman interceding in secret, to the pastor preaching behind the pulpit. From the father reading the Bible to his little boy, to friends crying together over the pain of loss.

By the simple fact that we were reconciled to God, we can now tell the whole world to be reconciled to him. And we will walk in that mission until our Lord returns in glory and renews this sin-broken world, until he makes all things new and takes us home, where we will worship him for eternity.

Served to Serve

Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

I don’t know if it’s because of our familiarity with the image of Jesus the carpenter in sandals, but we have lost our awe. We get excited about the idea of a celebrity liking one of our tweets and then go through the day without thinking even for a moment that the God of the universe, the Supreme Being, the one who is eternally blissful in himself, the one who needs nothing and no one, the one who created the stars and put the planets in their place, became man. He came to our home. And he didn’t come to our home to claim honor (although he might well have done so). He came to our home to serve.

When we think of being productive, serving is perhaps the last thing on our minds. We want to be productive in order to reach the top of the corporate ladder. Maybe we want to be productive so that a lot of people will recognize our name or so that we have the money to buy that car we’ve always dreamed of. But that isn’t what Jesus did. God left his glory to walk among us and offer himself on our behalf even unto death. He worked diligently for decades under the authority of a man he himself created, in a small workshop, in a small town, in a small country, without anyone recognizing him. He invested his life working with twelve men who had little to offer—a group that included traitors, liars, unbelievers, cowards, and a couple of brothers who thought they were worthy to sit next to the sovereign Lord of glory.

However, Jesus quickly demolished their dreams. He explained that in his kingdom, things work the other way around. The great serve. The first are slaves of all. Truly productive people are servants.

Just as God showed us his creative nature and invited us to create—just as he showed us his saving character and invites us to be part of his plan to save—so does he reveal his servant heart and call us to serve. We serve when we prepare a meal for our family. We serve when, however exhausting the week has been, we help our neighbor move. We serve when we invest our time teaching a child who is struggling with math. The needs around us never end. We Christians are called to recognize needs, extend our hands, and reflect the character of the God who cares for his own with love and humility.

This is the story of a creator, savior, and servant God. It’s the gospel story. It’s the story he invites us to be a part of, seeking to make the most of everything we have to reflect his glory.

The Gospel Transforms Our Productivity

To be productive is to embrace the reality of what God does in us and to respond in worship through our work and our rest.

What God Does

Christianity does not teach that we must do many things to be at peace with God. On the contrary, we do things because, through Jesus’s sacrifice, we are already at peace with God. The verdict is in. With this confidence we can seek to have a productive life, knowing that even if we fail miserably, there is grace from God to keep us going. Matt Perman summed it up this way: “The only way to be productive is to realize that you don’t have to be.”3 Truly productive people do not seek to be productive in order to discover their purpose but is productive because they have already found their purpose in God and now want to live it out.

This will change the way we view our successes and failures. Victories don’t make me feel superior because I know that separated from God, I am nothing. Defeats don’t make me hopeless because I know that my value is in Jesus and not in my performance.

What I Do