The Effective Faith Podcast

If you do not learn to master your phone, then you phone will become your master. So…I’m calling it.  We are a people who have been mastered by our phones.  We are their slaves now.  We MUST break this dependency as the stakes are so very high. But how did we get here?  How have we been conquered so easily? And what can we do about it?

Many years ago, I came across a very simple principle.  It was found in perhaps the first series of blog posts I had ever read about this whole issue of productivity.  It is a principle that I now live by.  I do not set arbitrary deadlines.  Not ever.  Many people do though and so I am writing this to provide my logic as you think through the question - are arbitrary deadlines helpful?

Every single one of us at some point in our life will start to feel like things are just getting messy.  We are just not on top of life the way we want to be. When that happens - we need to press the reset button.  But - how do you actually do that?

Sluggishness. Brain fog. The 3 o’ clock slump! Are these things that effect you?  These are all things that affect me, most of every day. They rob us of our focus.  They rob us of our effectiveness. I am no scientist in this area of life but I know that to neglect our physical well being and health can have a huge impact on our productivity.

It's my view that effective time management is all about serving others.  There are so many angles that I could explain this from and argue my case from but I will pick out just a few in order to build out my position on this for you. This is episode 35 of the Effective Faith Podcast - Effective Time Management is all about serving others.  My name is Chris Wood and I run Effective Faith - helping...

Consider your focus for a moment.  Where will you set your focus?  What will you consider to be important in life such that given you cannot do everything, this will be what you pursue?  That was the question we asked. Godliness picks up that question, pops the hood on it and asks - what will determine your answer to that question? Many people will tell that answering the question of what matters...

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.   You've made some intentional plans. You've made hard choices to determine what is actually important in your life. You've said no to good things, things you want, in order to preserve your focus for the things that really matter. But, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. So we come to the next aspect of saying no to our...

There is a lot of talk these days about the important of saying no.  The clear message tends to be along the lines of - your time is precious and so protect it.  Learn to say no.  I believe that there is truth in this but I cannot help but feel like a lot of this misses the point and it misses the one single biggest threat to all of this.  The biggest threat to your time is yourself.  The point th...

Every solution needs a problem... Here’s the point - we cannot begin to propose a better way, until we have effectively diagnosed the problem. The presenting issues - the manifestations - are merely symptoms and they are not the problem. What is needed is a shift in our mindset and our thinking. This is the only way to solve the problem of Toxic Productivity...

When productivity tools and techniques are harnessed appropriately - they are inherently creative.  When productivity goes toxic - it becomes destructive.  It destroys our health, our relationships, and ultimately it makes us totally ineffective and unproductive. Toxic Productivity comes with a price tag

When productivity tools and techniques are harnessed appropriately - they are inherently creative.  When productivity goes toxic - it becomes destructive.  It destroys our health, our relationships, and ultimately it makes us totally ineffective and unproductive. Toxic Productivity comes with a price tag

Toxic Productivity is being talked about more and more.  But, if you want a solution to this ever growing and destructive problem, you need to know where it comes from.

When productivity tools and techniques are harnessed appropriately - they are inherently creative.  When productivity goes toxic - it becomes destructive.  It destroys our health, our relationships, and ultimately it makes us totally ineffective and unproductive. This is episode 27 of the Effective Podcast: Toxic Productivity - What is it anyway.  My name is Chris Wood and I run Effective Faith -...

Year Planning.  If you think you’ve missed the boat on this.  I’m here to tell you that is a lie.  It is never too late to map out an Effective Year.  So, if you haven’t planned 2024 yet, or you haven’t finished - this is the place to be.

Most of us can read but getting value from it can eludes us. I suspect many people who don’t read, don’t read because they get little value from the books they read.  If you don’t get value from the books you read then reading it is a waste of time. So - how can you read a book for all its worth?

Obsessiosn are dangerous and productivity is something we can easily obsess over if we are not careful. Here are some ways to guard yourself against that. Here are the blog posts mentioned in the episoide: What is Toxic Productivity and where does it come from? The Cost of Toxic Productivity - Part 1 The Cost of Toxic Productivity - Part 2 Toxic Productivity - A Better Way Planning Overkill

There's no shortage of apps on the market today, all promising to revolutionise our productivity. It can sometimes feel like the app we use, the app we love, isn't flashy enough and so we get tempted to try and use the latest and greatest. Into this stream I want to interject and say "No! If the app works for you...USE IT!"

Recently I have been writing about how grace & humility are at the absolute heart of everything we seek to do.  These sit at the very core of our attempts to be more effective and to be more productive.  If we are a Christian believer then we will especially acknowledge this.  One of the things I have often thought about is where does prayer fit into our productivity and our desire to get thin...

Most of our progress and most of our growth doesn't come about in a quick win or in a leap or a bound.  It actually comes through slow, persistent and consistent action taken over a longer period of time.  This is where our habits come in.  It is our habits that will enable us to chip away bit by bit. But how do you ensure success in building new habits?

Sitting over the top of our goals, our projects and our areas of focus is our vision and our values.  By vision, I mean our own personal mission statement.  That sounds a bit too grand for an individual person.  I mean, what is it that we hope to do in the short time we are living on this earth.  Having some kind of idea on this is, I believe, an essential part of living an effective life.  Theref...

This week a listener question. We all struggle with focus and with organisation. We look at how to keep track of everything, plan ahead and prioritise and to keep focused without becoming overwhelmed and discouraged by what we can't get done.

Thomas Chalmers wrote his Essay in 1815 - The Expulsive Power of the New Affections. The only way to remove any unhealthy and unwholesome desires and habits from our hearts is to replace them with a new affections. This essay can help us in so many ways and Thomas Chalmers' thesis within it is at the heart of everything Effective Faith is all about.

This week we have another listener question - Our listener has been struggling to implement Time Block Planning for themselves and so this week I offer my thoughts on this approach to organising and managing your time.

E-mail is something that we all use every day. But we have a love/hate relationship with it. How can we stay on top of it? How can we manage our email effectively? Is email really all that great? And what alternatives might we use?

This week we are considering how to approach planning projects and what elements of a productivity system are most important? Should we start out with just some bits or should we try and set up a whole system all at once?