Enthusiastically, Dawn

After listening to Ana Ávila interviewed on the Crossway Podcast in March, I knew I would want to choose her book “Make the Most of Your Productivity- A Guide to Honoring God with Your Time” as my next book for review.

As many of you who follow me know, I have led a number of planning and productivity adventures for those seeking to squeeze the most out of their moments, or seeking to find the ever elusive balance in their busy lives. I also have written on the topic of planning with purpose, and have reviewed a number of excellent productivity tools- primarily planners. So it stands to reason that I would enjoy the occasional productivity, time management book, right?

Not always. Part of it is a great majority are written primarily for a corporate environment. Often with a sense of distance from personal life and focus on everything seen through a productivity perspective, that feels steely cold to me. There is some wisdom to be found in these offerings, but you have to extract them from a vast sea of words – many not applicable to the life I am living or want to live. However, I do enjoy checking in to this genre of reading and of course do appreciate the many exceptional books that are in it.

Let’s discuss this most recent read, and the reasons why it adds more than many of the alternatives out there by factoring in the unseen but ever present person of God into the planning and productivity equation.

Enter Ana and her Six Gospel- Centered Principles for a Productive Life. The book itself is broken down into three parts: Foundations, Principles, and Practices. At the end of each chapter she has sections for Reflection and another for Action points. These are short points to ponder further, and specific actions to implement, respectively.

Ana reminds the Christian that the call for both productivity and rest are for everyone and for the love of God and others. She backs up her writing with scripture in appropriate, applicable points. This book isn’t an overwhelming to-do list with a sledgehammer of Bible verses to reveal all the ways you should be doing life. Instead, Ana seems to hold a light to the path of wisdom, balancing well scales of grace and truth with our real life scenarios. In her examples and writing she sets a gracious, authentic tone.

Here are a smorgasbord of my favorite quotes to whet your appetite:

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.”

“If we pay close attention, we will realize the whole story of the Bible informs us about how we can live to honor the God who made us.”

“Whoever you are, God has entrusted you with resources to use for his glory and the good of others. You don’t need to earn as many coins as your neighbor; you just need to be faithful with what you have.”

“Jesus walked the earth not only to show us how we should live; he also came to die and pay for all the times we have not lived as we should.”

“Recognizing the reality of our limits does not prevent us from accomplishing the good works that God has prepared for us to do (Eph. 2:10), but trying to play every possible role does stop us from doing what we have to do and doing it well. Every believer has a part to play in this mission, and we are all equally valuable.”

“Resting is an act of faith. It’s an embodiment of the reality that the success of your work doesn’t depend on you.”

After giving readers plenty to reflect upon and evaluate we come to planning and practical suggestions to design our own weekly plan. These are basic and simple enough to implement into your thinking or planning process if you already are a planner person. However, the three step process is helpful if you need a clearer vision for planning- or are struggling or overwhelmed in your efforts to plan.

In the chapter titled, Align Your Life, we find this process spelled out in detail. It includes these: Neutralize, Evaluate, Plan. In summary it takes one through a way to prayerfully clear the deck, review current goals and tasks, and plan out priorities for the week ahead. A plan is such a small thing we can do to invest in our success weekly and this is like planting a weekly garden of good things- especially the necessary things. I find the author does a good job of clearly communicating the essentials, without getting bogged down with the irrelevant extras.

I loved this book and found it to be one of the best I have read on the topic of productivity. If you are a Christian and in need of a boost in balancing your life I think you will come away encouraged and empowered. I highly recommend this book for my planner pals, as well as for those who are planner resistant. Ana covers the bases of productivity beautifully.

You can listen to Ana’s inspiring interview with Matt Tully at Crossway Podcasts here: 6 Practical Principles for Increasing Your Productivity.

Thank you for reading this book review. I did receive this book from Crossway in exchange for an honest review as part of the Crossway Review Program.

I hope to share an update about my recent hip surgery soon. But for now, thank you for your prayers, well wishes and messages. I am recovering slower than preferred, but likely in exactly the speed God desires.

Enthusiastically, Dawn