Matt Perman: “You Don’t Have to Be Productive.”

Just found this post on the Desiring God blog.  I have to admit, the title, “You Don’t Have to Be Productive” is provocative and it caught my attention, especially because I am aware of how productive Matt Perman has to be seeing that his title is Senior Director of Strategy at Desiring God ministries.

Anyway, Perman was asked three questions in regards to biblical productivity to which he gave very solid, helpful answers.  The following is a response he gave to one of the questions:

3. In a nutshell, what is the most important and fundamental principle for being productive?

I would actually say: realize that you don’t have to be productive. By this I mean: your significance does not come from your productivity. It comes from Christ, who obeyed God perfectly on our behalf such that our significance and standing before God comes from him, not anything we do. Then, on that basis, we pursue good works (which is what productivity is) and do so eagerly, as it says in Titus 2:14.

When it comes to day-to-day application, the main principle is this: The key denominator of effectiveness is not intelligence or even hard work, as important as those are. It is the discipline to put first things first. You need to operate from a center of sound principles and organize and execute around priorities. This means that instead of prioritizing your schedule, you schedule your priorities.

You can find Matt Perman’s responses to the other two questions here.

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