Creative Productivity through Rest

There are thousands of books about trying to crack the productivity code. As someone who feels perpetually busy, with more books to read than I could ever actually consume and more dreams that I have life for, the desire to be more efficient and more effective has a real weight. After all, there is a great big world out there that needs to hear the gospel. How are we going to get it done in this life?

The answer is that we will not. In fact, as Kelly Kapic reminds us, God does not expect us to get everything done. However, we are supposed to live wisely, “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” (Eph 5:16)

In other words, productivity is not the ultimate goal of life, but it can be a good and godly thing.

Many productivity books, like How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, are designed to pack already full days to the max. They teach us to how to push harder, get more in, and get more done.

For some people, motivation and prioritization may, indeed, be the pressing need, but for many of us the real problem is that we are overworked and under rested. Particularly for those of us whose work requires creative thinking and problem solving, there needs to be space in the days, the weeks, and the months to slow down, rest, and let creativity happen.

A Different Approach to Creative Productivity

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang wrote Rest: When You Get More Done When You Work Less to encourage harried professionals to reconsider their “always on” approach to productivity. It may be that we can get more done by actually working less.

Through this readable and engaging book, Pang shows how our culture gets a great deal backward. The pursuit of efficiency as people have increasingly viewed themselves as machines has tended to push out the natural rhythms of life.

Pang offers suggestions for becoming more creative. He discusses the need to cap work sessions to the length when deliberate focus can be maintained. Practicing an instrument for eight hours in a given day is unlikely to produce the positive effect of a significantly shorter practice period where mental focus and acuity are highest. Pang brings data that demonstrates that many of the most productive people have limited their work hours but been very focused when they do work. Additionally, having set routines, taking walks, breaking up the day with naps, stopping mid-idea, and sleeping well (mostly at night) are vital to creativity. It is little wonder than many of us can barely function, because we are really exhausted. We are trying too hard to be successful; perhaps if we took our foot off the gas and structured our lives around creating the right environment for creativity can happen, then the muse will visit.

Assuming one can begin the creative process Pang gives some tools for sustaining it. This includes having periods of recovery. Even during wartimes significant strategists benefited from getting away to allow emotional and mental rest. While the mind rests, creativity may be improved through bodily activity, by focused recreation (e.g., playing chess). For many creative professionals, time away from the grind for a sabbatical may also benefit the ability to produce well.

The Big Difference

Especially as Artificial Intelligence threatens (promises?) to replace the repetitive sorts of human effort, people will need to find ways to be more creative. Low cognitive white-collar work like number crunching, basic research, and form processing may be automated. What computers can’t do is venture into the unknown, care effectively for people, and move beyond mimicry to innovation. (Some may contest these statements, but we shall see.) Rather than simply finding ways to grind out more form reviews in a given day, humans will need to relearn how to invent, to dazzle, and the puzzle through. We may have to shift away from our mechanized understanding of the world toward a more creaturely self-image.

Part of what Pang offers is a recipe for being human in a somewhat inhumane world. Of course, for anyone to buy the book, especially in an airport where the title itself might be enough to attract the attention of a weary business travel, Pang has to sell productivity as the ultimate goal. I think there is a better story and a better purpose that Pang’s ideas can be applied toward.

Rest is remarkable in the banality of most of its suggestions. The techniques Pang recommends are ancient and well-proven. We have just forgotten what it means not to be in a hurry. Rest is, however, encouraging in its appeal for readers to return to a pace that can be maintained. This may not be the book anyone asked for, but it may be just the book many of us needed. Time will tell.

Rest

By Pang, Alex Soojung-Kim

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From Strength to Strength - A Review

Getting old is not for wimps, as the saying goes. I was about thirty when changing my sleep patterns to do rotating shiftwork became much more difficult. In the past decade or so I’ve found it more challenging to read and absorb as fast as I used to. (To be fair, that may have more to do with my smartphone habits, as Nicholas Carr seems to show in The Shallows.) My workout routine now includes as much effort to avoid injury as it does trying to push the limits to achieve new goals. It’s a hard thing to go through the aging process, especially in a culture that so significantly values youth.

Arthur Brooks, former president of American Enterprise Institute, offers a difficult diagnosis for those around middle age in his recent book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. Thankfully, he chases that bad news with a healthy dose of encouragement and some helpful suggestions for how to best use the second half of life.

Summary

The book begins with Brooks telling the story of someone well known (he does not identify him) melting down on a plane because he felt like all his work had been for nothing. Having been at the top of his game, in his later years he knew he no longer measured up to that standard and judged his past accomplishments by his present ability. This is a warning. Brooks follows this anecdote with a chapter demonstrating that most people hit their decline much sooner than they recognize professionally.

The bad news is that the decline comes sooner than we would expect. The good news is that it is a particular type of decline. In general, younger people tend to be more adaptable and experience a higher degree of fluid intelligence. This is why software “upgrades” becomes “frustrating changes” at some point in life. On the other hand, there are new intelligences that open up. People tend to become wiser––having messed more things, perhaps––and they also tend to become more articulate. Some professions, especially humanities, tend to gain in acumen as time goes on, largely because of the volume of background knowledge that must be obtained. So, the bad news is tempered by some good news, as long as we are prepared to accept it and adjust ourselves to its reality.

Brooks argues that to age gracefully we must adapt our expectations. It simply isn’t feasible for a fifty year old to expect the same results with the same effort as someone in their mid-twenties. In fact, we are likely to work ourselves to death if we try to even those things out. That is why burnout around middle age is so common. Rather than crash and burn, we should attempt to adjust our expectations gradually. We should remember that we are going to die and live with both the anticipation of what that means and the realization of the limitations that brings. As a result, we should focus more on deep relationships and our spiritual journey (which for Brooks is a blend of Eastern religion and Roman Catholicism), be honest about our changing expectations with those around, and ultimately look for new opportunities that can best use our changing abilities.

Analysis

My own experience in corporate America has reminded me that there is something broken about our expectations. People are expected to continue to ascend the ladder through promotions, often into positions that are increasingly demanding and which absorb more and more time. The end is either fizzling into failure through breakdown or a job transition to another company once the backlog builds too high, or retirement after years of back-breaking effort. Rather than a natural parabola, career progressions appear to be upward sloping lines that end in a sudden drop.

What Brooks recommends is, therefore, a drastic improvement. It is also the sort of advice that could benefit many people who are clinging to past successes earned when the mind worked more swiftly or long hours of focus on a screen seemed less daunting. Accepting Brooks’ advice can change someone’s self-perception from one of loathing to one of hope. In general, this is a good thing.

On the other hand, some of the adjustments to Brooks affirms for later in life would be good for younger folks too. We should not wait until we are on the downhill side of life to focus on community and faith. The advice may be good for those who have neglected those aspects of their lives earlier on, but it is a mistake to presume that those good things can wait to be cultivated. It may be that by investing in one’s religious life and deepening relationships may preclude making it to the pinnacle of success, but it also may prevent the crash from coming. Counterfactuals are hard to conceive, but worth considering.

Conclusion

This is a useful book. There is wisdom in much of what Brooks writes, and this is no exception. As someone who has experienced real decline in several areas of his life, Brooks is speaking as one who is on the journey and is seeking to encourage on the road. From Strength to Strength may be just the sort of book that helps someone struggling with decline from despairing when the inevitable changes come. On the other hand, for those still on the rise, this may be the sort of warning that drives people to reconsider the path they take to make the decline less precipitous.

From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

By Brooks, Arthur C.

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De-Fragmenting Modernity - A Review

Paul Tyson’s 2017 book, De-fragmenting Modernity: Reintegrating Knowledge with Wisdom, Belief with Truth, and Reality with Being, is a place for those trying to bring order back to the modern world. This is not a book for the philosophical novice, and even those familiar with language like epistemology and ontology will have to read Tyson carefully. At the same time, the thesis and the argument are worth the work.

Tyson’s basic thesis is that “being, knowing, and believing always have their meanings in relation to each other.” (7) Unfortunately, the category of being has largely been ejected from the cultural imagination. This is part of what makes Tyson a challenge to read: He is resurrecting concepts and speaking in terms that are foreign to the way contemporary Western culture is constructed and communicates.

As the title indicates, Tyson is critical of modernity. Here he joins a line of other voices, which includes those who would like to return to some sort of pre-medieval synthesis and those who think that even the misshapen constraints of modernity are too restrictive. Tyson deals less with the cultural impacts of modernity than he does with the philosophical roots of modernity.

The beginning of an answer to what ails modernity, according to Tyson, is restoring the concept of ontology (the study of being) to the cultural imagination and then bringing being, wisdom, and truth back together in conversation. This process begins with the reconstruction of basic cultural assumptions, which begins by recognizing one’s hidden preconceptions and then trying to reconcile them with another set. The challenge is real.

One huge challenge Tyson identifies is that cultural assumptions are often masked, even (or perhaps especially) for those who specialize in pointing out the assumptions of others. He writes, “When modern theological thinking tries to be ‘scientific’ in modern terms––appealing to notions of objective proof and instrumental effectiveness––it is entirely unrelated to ancient theology. This is as true of ‘liberal’ theology as it is of ‘fundamentalist’ theology in modernity.” (37)

Tyson’s point here will be shocking to some, but he is far from the first to note that many fundamentalists have adopted basically modern approaches to theology. This has sometimes resulted in sub-orthodox formulations of doctrine, even among those most concerned with orthodoxy. The reductionistic tendency of our culture shapes us unless we consistently seek to challenge them, interrogating them to evaluate their integrity. That interrogation must not be done skeptically, with the cynicism entailed in the approach of the college sophomore, but honestly with a repeated attempt to ask “Is this right?” or “What am I missing?”

Tyson’s work fits well into the conversation with individuals like Zygmunt Bauman, Charles Taylor, and others. Tyson comes at the questions from a more directly philosophical angle, rather than the cultural or sociological angle of others. Everyone doing cultural analysis of modernity’s failings is engaged in philosophy, but Tyson’s analysis ventures little beyond philosophy.

De-fragmenting Modernity is a worthwhile volume for those philosophically minded and willing to invest some energy into careful reading. As we continue to try to restore a deeper sense of reality in our lives, including among our circles of friends and family, the foundational work Tyson is doing can be a source of conversation and discovery.

De-Fragmenting Modernity: Reintegrating Knowledge with Wisdom, Belief with Truth, and Reality with Being

By Tyson, Paul

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The Man Born to be King - A Review

In the midst of World War II in the U.K. and all the drama that it entailed, there was some additional drama about a drama. At the center of the hubbub was novelist, playwright, and translator Dorothy L. Sayers.

Perhaps best known for her detective novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, Sayers was also an accomplished dramatist. The BBC commissioned her to write a series of plays for children, to be performed on the radio. They were to be plays about the life and ministry of Jesus.

The cycle of twelve plays was called The Man Born to be King. Though they are not exhaustive, they cover the span of Jesus earthly life, and were meant to be something of a comfort to a nation at war.

Unfortunately, like many well-intentioned attempts to convey Christianity to the masses, Sayers’ efforts met with controversy. The Man Born to be King drew great praise, but it also left people deeply concerned because Sayers used slang rather than King James English to help convey the reality of the Gospel accounts. Additionally, some were concerned about the representation of Jesus, though Sayers was especially careful to draw his dialogue more directly from Scripture. And, of course, any dramatist must fill in some gaps that even four Gospel writers left with minor characters, extrabiblical narrative, and details that illustrate the truths embedded in the life of Christ. The tragedy is really that these plays tend to be more remembered for the drama they caused rather than the greater Drama they portrayed.

The cycle of plays known as The Man Born to be King are so rich that C. S. Lewis read them yearly as Easter approached. This recent republication of these plays by IVP Academic is in time for people to pick up their own copies to follow Lewis’ example.

The plays themselves are not innovative. In fact, were readers not aware of the controversy surrounding their original production, a contemporary audience would find little that is shocking in them. They are an attempt to faithfully convey the greatest story ever told in a manner that may seem more real to contemporary readers because of the effort Sayers invested to bring the stories into the 20th century. Sayers’ effort is part of what makes these plays so spiritually invigorating.

Though an edition of these plays can be found in print through Wipf and Stock, the recent edition of The Man Born to Be King from IVP Academic, published in partnership with the Marion E Wade Center out of Wheaton University, has accompanying notations that enrich the text by providing context for somewhat obscure (to our minds, nearly a century later) references and also show some of the ways that Sayers modified her manuscript along the way. This annotated edition, edited by Kathryn Wehr, augments the text in a way that does not interfere with casual reading and provides a treasure trove for fans of Dorothy L. Sayers.

Whether you read these plays in preparation for Easter or at another point during the year, it will be spiritually beneficial. If this is your first time through The Man Born to be King, feel free to skip the front matter and notes to dive into the text. However, for those who are interested in the story behind the text, what Wehr provides through her annotations is well worth the time to pause and investigate. This new volume is solid scholarship accompanying a remarkable text. It should be read well and widely.

The Man Born to Be King: Wade Annotated Edition

By Sayers, Dorothy L.

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NOTE: I was provided a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

The Ethics of Authenticity - A Review

Charles Taylor is one of the critics of modernity whose work cannot be avoided. Taylor’s framework for understanding contemporary Western culture has been invoked, discussed, or critiqued widely in past few decades.

Many who have never picked up one of Taylor’s books nonetheless would recognize terms like buffered self or immanent frame if they were spoken within hearing. Those are ideas that accompany Taylor’s thoughts.

Unfortunately, though Taylor is important (even if not accepted by all) for understanding contemporary discussions, some of his works are both large and challenging to read. Many people, therefore, rely on second hand interpretations which are sometimes helpful, but also tend to carry freight beyond what Taylor intended. It’s always good to go to the source.

Taylor’s book, The Ethics of Authenticity, is a reasonable point of entry for his work. It originated as lectures that were received by a more popular than academic audience, so the language and explanation are much clearer. Additionally, the book itself is much shorter, while still providing a sufficiently thorough explanation of his main points.

In The Ethics of Authenticity, Taylor discusses three malaises of modernity: (1) Individualism; (2) The primacy of instrumental reasoning; and (3) The soft despotism of systems that are trying to maintain modernity’s grip.

Individualism is, Taylor recognizes, both a major accomplishment of modernity and one of its most troubling attributes. It is a good thing that the personhood and agency of an individual has been recognized and greater freedom has come to make real human progress. At the same time, the loss of the sense of belonging, of purpose, and of one’s proper place within the cosmos was swept away by what has become, in more extreme iterations, an existentialism full of dread.

Individualism led to the break down of the sense of order in the cosmos, which led to disenchantment. That disenchantment, in turn, contributes to the primacy of instrumental reasoning. Less often is the inherent worth of an object, a task, or a person considered. Instead, the chief measure of value is whether something is efficient, what the bottom line is, and what it can be used for. This is a totalizing perspective, which forces even those who recognize that people are more than inefficient machines still must terminate the employment of their least efficient workers, whether their family circumstances support it or not.

There is irony in the freedom that has been achieved through modernity. We are cut adrift from many of the most onerous obligations, but we are now caught by our isolation in a much more unforgiving machine, which is difficult to resist. Thus, “the institutions and structures of industrial-technological society severely restrict our choices, that they force societies as well as individuals to give a weight to instrumental reason that in serious moral deliberation we would never do, and which may even be highly destructive.”

These malaises all involve a high place for “authenticity” as a central virtue of modern moral thinking. Rather than faith, hope, and love, which all bear a sense of duty and constraint, the central concern of modern ethics is to be authentic—to be true to oneself. Taylor first of all shows how this is more than total narcissism and vacuous reasoning, which many (especially conservatives) ascribe to modern thinking as they dismiss it. At the same time, authenticity is also tyrannical. One’s identity is not complete until it is recognized (affirmed?) by another. This, then, makes the whole system incoherent.

However, Taylor argues, that the current system is too strongly woven into the fabric of society, so that stepping out of modernity is not possible. He writes, “The struggle ought no to be over authenticity; for or against it, but about it, defining its proper meaning. We ought to be trying to life the culture back up, closer to its motivating ideal.” That is, those of us seeking to reclaim some semblance of sanity in culture might be better off pointing people toward what it means to be truly and properly human.

I’m too new to Taylor’s work to draw a final conclusion. There is also too much more for me to read to claim to say, “This is the way.” However, as I read through The Ethics of Authenticity I underlined and annotated a large number of passages. I found myself nodding along, thinking that he had perhaps gotten something that I had not figured out just yet, and that it would be worth doing more homework to figure out if what he says can be put into practice.  At the very least, I think I have a better sense of what everyone else has been talking about. If you want that, too, then this may be a book for you.

The Ethics of Authenticity

By Taylor, Charles

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On Getting Out of Bed - A Review

Anyone who lives long enough will come to the day they aren’t sure if getting out of bed is worth it. Maybe it won’t be getting out of bed per se, but perhaps persisting in daily activity in the face of a difficult monotony.

Is it worth it to wash the dishes? Is it worth it to go to class? Maybe getting out to church isn’t really that important. Will anyone really miss me? Rather than face the endless list of tasks, sometimes it really feels like giving up is a better option.

Depression—whether the sort driven by temporary circumstances or true mental illness—comes for believers as often as non-believers. Sometimes Christians do not trust available resources to help themselves or others when the black dog of persistent sadness or anxiety sits on their chests.

There are, of course, some sharp divides among Christians about psychology and medical interventions for depression. Some, especially in the Nouthetic Counseling movement speak of psychological treatments as sinful. Other Christians do not raise any question about any psychological treatment whatsoever, accepting approaches to mental health that clearly contradict Scripture. We aren’t going to solve that debate here.

However, a common theme in discussions between those rival factions is the treatment of depression as if it is something “out there” and distinct from the person experiencing it. A different set of questions inhabits the mind of the individual wrestling with depression.

Alan Noble’s book, On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living, is a phenomenal resource for those who struggle with depression. It is practical, not in the sense of providing seven steps to a better you, but in the sense it says the things that need to be said. It is both an encouragement to exist and an exhortation to persist in whatever activities one can manage.

Even our mere continued existence is a blessing to others in the midst of pain:

“Your existence is a testament, a living argument, an affirmation of creation itself. When you rise each day, that act is a faint but real echo of God’s ‘It is good.’ By living this life, you participate in God’s act of creation, asserting with your very existence that it is a good creation.”

The book provides a way to feel a sense of accomplishment in the mundane:

“When we act on [the goodness of creation] by rising out of bed, when we take that step to the block in radical defiance of suffering and our own anxiety and depression and hopelessness, with our heads held high, we honor God and His creation, and we testify to our family, to our neighbors, and to our friends of his goodness. This act is worship.”

And those stringing together those little “victories” by taking one step at a time is a witness to God’s faithfulness:

“Moments create momentum. When you choose to do the next thing, neither accepting nor denying the anxiety or depression you carry, you create the momentum that makes the next, next thing a bit easier to manage. And the converse is true. When you cannot do the next thing, everything becomes harder to manage.”

Noble reminds readers that neither our suffering nor even our disobedience can undermine God’s glorious plan of redemption, “because the ending is already written: you will overcome, Christ has redeemed and will glorify you, including your flawed and, in some cases, ill mind.”

One of the strong positives of Noble’s approach is that it takes the reality of anxiety and depression seriously, but it does not excuse people for ceasing to strive against it. The feelings are real, but the duty to care for your neighbor is also real. Therefore, it is a good thing to continue to do what you can. It is not ok to simply give up, even if you can’t do everything you could normally do. Having diminished capacity is no sin; not using the capacity you have for the glory of God is. Duty and grace are wound together.

This is a hopeful book. Noble reminds readers of the central purpose of our existence:

“In the end, the only reason to keep living is if you live before God for His glory. If His Word is true, then we were divinely created to glorify Him and enjoy Him always. And our creation was a fundamentally good act––good and prodigal. Neither earned nor necessary but a gracious gift. And when we live in gratitude, recognizing and delighting in this life, we honor God.”

On Getting Out of Bed is an encouraging book. It is the sort of book that Christians should read to better understand the struggles of others, but also to have a better theology of suffering and hope before their own day of struggle arises. It can be a help in a time of struggle, but the best treatments are often taken in advance. There is a persistent theme of hope throughout the book. The message is that the fight is hard but worth it.

This book, which is Noble’s third, is the best of them so far. The social commentary he offers in Disruptive Witness and You are Not Your Own is important. The practical hope he writes about in On Getting Out of Bed is the antidote to many of the malaises that modernity has afflicted us with.

In short, this is a book that Christians should be familiar with. Pastors should have extra copies to give away. It would be a good book to study in a small group from time to time. This will likely be the best and most useful new book I encounter this year.

For many, On Getting Out of Bed may make the difference between choosing to continue and not. That is a big claim, but I believe it to be true. I believe time will show my claim to be correct.

On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living

By Noble, Alan

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NOTE: I received a gratis, advanced reader copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review. Quotes were taken from that volume.

Quit - A Review

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

At least, that’s what I’ve heard many times so far in my middle-aged existence.

Many of the cultural myths that we celebrate tell the stories of underdogs who didn’t quit when they were up against unthinkable odds and someone came through. Stories like Rudy light up our collective imaginations as we see the little guy, too dumb to go to Notre Dame and too small to get onto the field of play, fight his way through practice for years until he finally gets a moment on the field. All of that happened because he did not quit.

It's a good story. Anyone who can watch Rudy and not get excited has a heart two sizes too small.

But that story is a one in a million. It’s a beautiful story. It’s romantic. It also only accounts for a tiny piece of Rudy’s own story, or the thousands of different ways that his story could have ended had he chosen just a little differently. Those might not have ended up on the big screen, but we have no idea what his energy and effort could have led to in an alternate universe where he didn’t invest so much of himself into being a mediocre college football player.

The point isn’t the Rudy Ruettiger story, though. The point is that we have made it a sign of weakness to recognize that we are going the wrong way, pursuing the wrong dream, and that the best course of action is to turn around. That’s what quitting can be. It can be deciding to go a different way.

What if sometimes the quitting is the best way to make progress in life?

Annie Duke’s recent book, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, is about looking at quitting in a different way and recognizing that sometimes it is really the best choice available.

Duke was once a professional poker player. She recognizes, as Kenny Rogers used to sing, “You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.” One of the basic skills every poker player needs to have is recognizing when the odds are stacking against you and folding the hand. Quit is really about learning to recognize when it is time to step away from a hand so that you can play another hand. It’s about learning when to quit.

Of course, the assumption Duke makes is that the sort of people who are reading her book are people that are going to quit one activity to go start another. A professional athlete might retire because his joints are creaky and he can’t run as fast, but generally the competitive drive that got them to the peak of their sport pushes them to strive in another area. Duke’s book is for the sort of person that is going to attack the next goal, at which they might have a better chance of succeeding.

Quit falls into the category of a lot of other self-help, productivity, and organizational psychology book. Duke is a popularizer who cites studies performed by others, but communicates them in a way that is easily accessible and more helpful than a peer reviewed article with a bunch of tables. There are citations of Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and some of the other usual subjects. This is an airplane book. It takes a few hours to read, can be put down and picked up with ease, and offers some self-improvement along the way.

One of the deep flaws of this book is that the motivations behind sticking to it or quitting are shallow and instrumental. It’s all about money and self-fulfillment. Given that, it’s not surprising that Duke recommends her decision making for divorce in cases where a spouse isn’t helping someone achieve their full potential. There is little room for duty and integrity in this book. It’s all about my happiness and my success.

At the same time, the thought process behind decision making can be helpful for an individual or organization that is stuck in a rut. There are too many church programs that persist for years after the people that drove them are gone or their purpose is being efficiently fulfilled. Sometimes we need to cut our losses in a ministry and move on to something that fits better with the current need or the current members of the congregation.

Taken with a grain of salt, there is a chunk of good advice in this popular-level book. Sometimes we need to put our heads down and keep pushing forward. But we also need to recognize that when we do that, we are giving up opportunities for something else. Sometimes we need to look at other opportunities and recognize they provide a better return on the investment of our time. Efficiency and success isn’t the only thing that matters, but sometimes it does matter. Sometimes we need to know when to quit.

Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away

By Duke, Annie

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