Productivity on J. David Stark

You Need to Know What You Want to Accomplish in 2026

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What do you want to accomplish in the next 12 months? Intentionally planning with these 5 steps will help you make the most of them.

Opportunities Cost You: Why "Yes" Actually Means "No"

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Human experience works out such that inside any “yes” is also a “no.” But investing effort in activities like study lets us engage better with life as a result.

How to Use Thunderbird to Minimize Your Inbox Time

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Email is ubiquitous in biblical studies— sometimes too much so.((Header image provided by Thunderbird.)) But there are several principles you can use to get out of your inbox more benefits and fewer downsides.

In the bigger picture, the specific tools you use to access your email is less important than that you use it according to such principles. Doing so will help make sure you’re using it and not being used by it. And you can implement these principles in various ways depending on how you prefer to send and receive email.

You Don't Actually Win by Doing the Most Email

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Biblical studies isn’t a matter of “(s)he who writes the most email wins.” But that obvious truth that can still get obscured all too easily.

How to Put More Focus beyond Email

Mon, 09 May 2022 12:00:00 +0000

A 4-step process can help you focus on what really matters. This process can even help you curb something as overloading as email.

You Need to Stop Redoing the Same Work

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 12:00:00 +0000

It’s no fun going in circles, redoing work you’ve already done. But it’s all too easy to do unless you question how you do what you do.

6 Steps to Block Your Time for More Focus in a Digital Workspace

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 12:00:00 +0000

However you time block, you can use 6 simple steps can make that process pretty seamless in a digital workspace.

5 Ways You Can Block Your Time to Focus on What Really Matters

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 15:43:29 +0000

These 5 ways to block your time can help you focus on what really matters, rather than what’s just latest and loudest.

Why You Need to Block Your Time

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 12:00:00 +0000

When are you going to work on your goals? Rather than wondering where the time goes, be proactive and make a plan for your calendar with time blocking.

How Todoist Can Support Your Work and Life

Mon, 19 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

School, work, and life are complex. You need a way of managing your commitments. If you’re looking for this, Todoist might be the tool for you.

To Be Productive, You Need to Be Adaptable

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 10:25:11 +0000

Adaptability is central to productivity. Especially amid life’s complexities, to stay productive, you need to stay adaptable and open.

Daily Gleanings: Habits (19 December 2019)

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 11:48:00 +0000

Chris Bailey and James Clear, author of “Atomic Habits,” discuss habit formation and the impact that small habits can have.

Daily Gleanings: Productivity (1 January 2020)

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 16:00:13 +0000

Erik Fisher and Craig Jarrow discuss essential time management tools.

Daily Gleanings: Finishing (23 December 2019)

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 16:00:02 +0000

To finish goals or projects that seem to drag on forever, try time keys or splitting things up into smaller units.

Daily Gleanings: Benchmarking (20 December 2019)

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 16:00:10 +0000

Instead of simply focusing on skill development, Scott Young suggests that “benchmark projects” will tend to be more effective.

Daily Gleanings: Writing (17 December 2019)

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 16:00:21 +0000

Emmanuel Nataf outlines several concrete practices to develop in order to foster consistent writing.

Daily Gleanings: Time Blocking (11 December 2019)

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 16:00:37 +0000

Stephen Altrogge provides a helpful introduction to time blocking as a way of creating and committing to space for deep work.

Daily Gleanings: Atomic Minimalism (6 December 2019)

Fri, 06 Dec 2019 16:00:00 +0000

James Clear and Cal Newport discuss the symbiotic relationship their prior work has in terms of fostering focus.

Daily Gleanings: Productivity (5 December 2019)

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Jory MacKay discusses productivity shame and five strategies for coping with it.

Daily Gleanings: Lectures (4 December 2019)

Wed, 04 Dec 2019 16:00:26 +0000

Using a baking metaphor, McGever encourages chronic over-preparers not to “overwork the batter” of their lectures so that they don’t come out overly dense.

Daily Gleanings: Focus (2 December 2019)

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 16:00:46 +0000

Corey Pemberton discusses eight specific types of challenges with focus and provides some suggestions for overcoming each type.

Daily Gleanings: Showing Up (29 November 2019)

Fri, 29 Nov 2019 16:00:34 +0000

Steven Pressfield shares his thoughts on winning inner creative battles. Pressfield encourages continuing to show up, do the work, and keep moving forward.

Daily Gleanings: Personality (28 November 2019)

Thu, 28 Nov 2019 16:00:47 +0000

Michael Hyatt and Ian Cron discuss different personality types, their particular productivity challenges, and how to overcome these.

Daily Gleanings: GTD (19 November 2019)

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 16:00:49 +0000

Daily Gleanings about overviews of the “Getting Things Done” methodology popularized by David Allen.

Daily Gleanings: Freedom (7 November 2019)

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Daily Gleanings about Freedom for Chrome OS and Linux.

Daily Gleanings: Overwhelm (6 November 2019)

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Daily Gleanings about overwhelm and some strategies for moving past it.

Daily Gleanings: Overwhelm (17 October 2019)

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 16:00:50 +0000

Daily Gleanings about overcoming feelings of overwhelm.

Daily Gleanings: Focus for Study (9 October 2019)

Wed, 09 Oct 2019 16:00:54 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Freedom about how to focus your attention better when studying.

Daily Gleanings: Indistractability (4 October 2019)

Fri, 04 Oct 2019 16:00:31 +0000

Daily Gleanings about Nir Eyal’s discussion about how to improve focus and become “indistractable.”

Daily Gleanings: Email (2 October 2019)

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 16:00:54 +0000

Daily Gleanings about how best to minimize the footprint doing email has in your days.

Daily Gleanings: Productivity (24 September 2019)

Tue, 24 Sep 2019 16:00:11 +0000

Daily Gleanings about the importance of focus for productivity and a case study in thinking about productivity in the context of full-time church work.

Daily Gleanings: Pressure (23 September 2019)

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 16:00:31 +0000

Daily Gleanings about the importance of community for enabling productivity in settings and times where you feel like you’re under pressure.

Daily Gleanings: Planning Preaching (20 September 2019)

Fri, 20 Sep 2019 16:00:21 +0000

Daily Gleanings about planning preaching and coordinating it with academic work.

Daily Gleanings: Consistency (19 September 2019)

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 16:00:05 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Michael Hyatt about the importance of consistent effort over time and this effort’s relationship to (mega)batching.

Daily Gleanings: Weekly Reviews (5 September 2019)

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 16:00:48 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Todoist about how to do a weekly review to keep perspective amid hectic weeks.

Pro Tips for Busy Writers: Ben Blackwell

Tue, 03 Sep 2019 09:00:00 +0000

Ben Blackwell provides several pro tips for busy writers in biblical studies. Ben stresses scheduling time both for writing and for rest.

Pro Tips for Busy Writers: Ben Blackwell

Mon, 02 Sep 2019 13:27:00 +0000

Ben Blackwell provides several pro tips for busy writers in biblical studies. Ben stresses scheduling time both for writing and for rest.

Daily Gleanings: Knowledge Work (22 August 2019)

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 16:00:13 +0000

Daily Gleanings about the challenges inherent in knowledge work and ways of balancing productive work with healthy engagement in the rest of life.

Daily Gleanings: Focus (14 August 2019)

Wed, 14 Aug 2019 16:00:10 +0000

Daily Gleanings about focus and Focusmate.

Daily Gleanings: Software (1 August 2019)

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 16:00:47 +0000

Daily Gleanings about improved cross-compatibility among word processors in Zotero and about exporting information from PhraseExpress.

Daily Gleanings: Thoughts from Freedom (31 July 2019)

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 16:00:45 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Freedom about avoiding procrastination and Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s thoughts on how to foster focused work as a busy academic.

Daily Gleanings: Freedom (22 July 2019)

Mon, 22 Jul 2019 16:00:10 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Freedom about distractions (digital and otherwise) and how to overcome them to improve your focus on what matters.

Daily Gleanings (17 July 2019)

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 16:00:37 +0000

Daily Gleanings about how David Allen would design software for GTD and how to use Todoist to leverage the Eisenhower matrix.

Daily Gleanings (16 July 2019)

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 16:00:37 +0000

Daily Gleanings about simple productivity improvements to try and better understanding the importance of networks for work in biblical studies.

Daily Gleanings (12 July 2019)

Fri, 12 Jul 2019 16:00:58 +0000

Daily Gleanings from RBL about Heath Thomas’s commentary on Habakkuk and Rocketbook about maximizing productivity.

Daily Gleanings (5 July 2019)

Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:00:07 +0000

Daily Gleanings about complex systems, their failure, and remedies for these failures, as well as brief suggestions for restoring motivation.

Daily Gleanings: Attention (1 July 2019)

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 16:00:56 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Dropbox about Jenny Odell’s “How to Do Nothing” and Freedom about time tracking.

Daily Gleanings: Insights from Freedom (24 June 2019)

Mon, 24 Jun 2019 16:00:37 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Freedom on the new Insight extension for Chrome and on how to manage time effectively and cut the clutter of distraction.

Daily Gleanings (20 June 2019)

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 16:00:41 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Michael Kruger about ordination exams (with applications for new faculty) and from Todoist about “eating the frog” for productivity.

Daily Gleanings (13 June 2019)

Thu, 13 Jun 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Daily Gleanings from Todoist on the Pomodoro technique and Peter Gurry on the Harklean Syriac.

Daily Gleanings (11 June 2019)

Tue, 11 Jun 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Michael Thomas discusses the importance of sleep for knowledge work through the lens of a couple key anecdotal narratives.

Todoist has published a helpful introduction to “GTD practices and what [they] think is the most intuitive way to implement the[se practices] in Todoist.”

The essay comments, in part, that “the key to GTD isn’t the techniques or tools you use to execute tasks but rather the habits you employ on a daily basis to think about and prioritize your work.”

Daily Gleanings (22 May 2019)

Wed, 22 May 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Freedom discusses how to use their “block all except” whitelisting feature to block out distractions and interruptions.

For more discussion of Freedom, see these prior posts.

John Meade surveys ch. 4 of Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten’s How Old Is the Hebrew Bible?(YUP, 2018) and promises a follow-up post “attempting to engage the authors on one of their examples from chapter 4 with a view to showing how they think diachony and TC work together.”

Daily Gleanings (17 May 2019)

Fri, 17 May 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Daily Gleanings about the “Text and Canon Institute” and improving performance by minimizing distractions.

Daily Gleanings (13 May 2019)

Mon, 13 May 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Daily Gleanings about Hume’s critique of miracles and the downsides of email.

Are You Free to Focus? (Part 6: Takeaways)

Mon, 13 May 2019 12:00:00 +0000

I had two main takeaways from “Free to Focus” that I’ve already started implementing: megabatching and using technology to avoid distracting technology.

Daily Gleanings (7 May 2019)

Tue, 07 May 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Doist provides a “complete guide to deep work.” The essay is mainly geared toward summarizing the advice of Cal Newport’s Deep Work with some additional insertions from Digital Minimalism.

Both books are definitely worth reading. But Doist’s essay is a thorough crash course on the basics.

Daily Gleanings (6 May 2019)

Mon, 06 May 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Gleanings on perfectionism and recent articles in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism.

Are You Free to Focus? (Part 5: Assessment)

Mon, 06 May 2019 12:00:00 +0000

Now that we’ve surveyed Michael Hyatt’s “Free to Focus,” we can to offer an assessment of its proposal. In a phrase, it’s “GTD for Essentialists.”

Daily Gleanings (29 April 2019)

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Gleanings about focus, distractions, and Paul’s thought about incorporation in the Messiah.

Are You Free to Focus? (Part 4: Acting)

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 12:00:00 +0000

Continued review of Michael Hyatt’s “Free to Focus.” We discuss the three elements of “acting” on what you’ve identified as most important to pursue.

Are You Free to Focus? (Part 3: Cutting)

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 12:00:00 +0000

After you stop to discern what’s important, you need to cut out what sidetracks you from focusing on that. Here are three strategies for doing just that.

Are You Free to Focus? (Part 2: Stopping)

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 12:00:48 +0000

This post continues reviewing Michael Hyatt’s book “Free to Focus.” Here we concentrate on Hyatt’s advice about “stopping” to to discern what’s important.

Daily Gleanings (9 April 2019)

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 17:00:29 +0000

Gleanings about persistence, regularity, and a new Greek grammar.

Are You Free to Focus? (Part 1)

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 13:00:47 +0000

Do you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of tasks? Do you keep your nose to the grindstone and complete to-dos like a machine only to look up and find you’re failing to make the progress you want in the areas or projects that matter most?

If so, then you need to read Michael Hyatt’s latest book, Free to Focus ( affiliate disclosure). The volume doesn’t release until tomorrow, 9 April. But the author and Baker Publishing kindly included me in the group that received advance copies.

A Conversation about Essentials

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 12:00:40 +0000

Michele Cushatt, Michael Hyatt, and Greg McKeown discuss “essentialism,” which is about saying “yes” to what matters most.

Technology and Distraction

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google, discusses at TED the interplay between technology, attention, and distraction.

Scheduling focus

Mon, 28 Aug 2017 13:00:11 +0000

Freedom has a helpful tutorial about being “more productive in the afternoon.” The same principles apply to whenever is one’s preferred time for focused work.

Ode to to-do lists

Thu, 24 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Kristina Malsberger discusses managing oneself and one’s commitments amid a hectic whirlwind of activity. A time-honored key is the daily to-do list.

Reading for writing

Fri, 18 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Cal Newport outlines the basics of how he reads when working on a project. According to Newport, “The key to my system is the pencil mark in the page corner.”

Focus—there’s an app for that

Wed, 16 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Digital devices and media can make focus difficult. Freedom provides helpful of “training wheels” to foster better focus amid such distractions.

Staying focused

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Valerie Bisharat shares some helpful reflections on “how to avoid focus-stealing traps.”

Toward not multitasking on the Dropbox blog

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 13:00:03 +0000

The Dropbox blog has a short essay on the downsides of trying to multitask. Rather than multitasking,

deep and singular focus is just what the doctor ordered, but in our hyper-connected world, it isn’t always easy…. You could chuck all your gadgets and move to the woods, but luckily you don’t need to get that drastic. Experts say you can begin to retrain your brain and take advantage of deep focus by concentrating on one thing at a time, managing your use of technology, and reframing the “instant-response” expectations of your colleagues—and yourself.

GTD Times

Fri, 19 May 2017 13:00:56 +0000

It’s certainly not new, but I recently came across the GTD Times blog run by the David Allen Company. The most recent entry is the first part of a keynote in which Allen overviews his approach to “getting things done,” as covered more fully in his book by the same title ( affiliate disclosure). If academia should ever manifest itself as an environment with an overabundance of demands, Allen’s advice may be a helpful starting point in adequately coming to grips with that situation.

Hyatt's Interview with Newport

Mon, 01 May 2017 13:00:26 +0000

Michael Hyatt has a helpful interview with Cal Newport, author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (Grand Central, 2016). According to Newport,

Focus is now the lifeblood of this economy.

Why? Because focus is rare and distraction abundant. As Hyatt comments,

Better attention than a goldfish

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 13:00:07 +0000

A recent study commissioned by Microsoft Canada found, disturbingly, that the human participants’ average attention spans had fallen to 8 seconds, a shorter time frame than measured for goldfish ( Evernote, New York Times). One of the major suspected drivers of these results is the propensity of the participants to use a mobile device while “paying attention” to something else.

Remedying overcommitment

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 13:00:51 +0000

Michael Hyatt has a new post where he provides seven strategies for remedying or avoiding overcommitment. All seven suggestions are good and worth considering. But, the capstone suggestion, number seven seems particularly key:

Evernote on minimalism

Mon, 03 Apr 2017 13:00:17 +0000

Although I’ve moved away from using Evernote, their blog still often features interesting content. Recently they’ve had a three-part series on minimalism that heavily leans on Joshua Becker ( part 1, part 2, part 3). Among Joshua’s reflections that the series provides are a two-part suggestion for “saying ’no’ effectively:

Free to focus—on sleep?

Fri, 31 Mar 2017 13:00:09 +0000

Free to Focus logo

As part of Michael Hyatt’s Free to Focus resource set, he’s made available three treat the significance for productivity of adequate, quality sleep:

Interview with Shawn Stevenson (video)
Unleash Nature’s Secret Weapon eBook (PDF)
13 Essential Keys to a Good Night’s Sleep (PDF)

Shawn Stevenson’s core business certainly falls in an area where probably few biblical scholars will care to follow. But some of the implications of the expertise that he has for broader productivity applications may indeed prove informative and helpful.

Tips for better focus

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 13:00:24 +0000

Michael Hyatt has a helpful discussion of 10 tips for enabling better focus. For me, suggestions 5 (“Take email … software offline.”) and 6 (“Put on music that helps facilitates concentration.”) have tended to prove particularly helpful.

For Michael’s discussion of these tips and the other 8 he provides, see his original post.

Eliminating distractions

Mon, 27 Mar 2017 13:00:54 +0000

Going along with his Free to Focus material, Michael Hyatt has a helpful, free resource about eliminating distractions. The material in this resource is designed to work with and complement the content Michael delivers in his webinar, The 7 Deadly Sins of Productivity: The Hidden Habits Undermining Your Performance (And How to Change Them).

Productivity assessment

Fri, 24 Mar 2017 13:00:48 +0000

Michael Hyatt has a free productivity assessment tool that provides “a free analysis of your overall [personal productivity] score and a breakdown of the productivity areas you evaluated.”

A followup email provides a short set of tips for improving, and the analysis page that displays after the survey is completed provides access to sign up for a free webinar on the “7 deadly sins of productivity.” I attended the webinar recently, and it does provide a good number of suggestions revolving around focus as a primary key to productivity.

David Allen @EntreLeadership

Fri, 10 Feb 2017 14:00:53 +0000

David Allen, via Twitter

If you’ve never read David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity (Penguin, 2001), a recent episode of the EntreLeadership podcast has a sit-down with Allen and crash course in the fundamentals of what he thinks makes for effective time management self-management in time.

Skills to cultivate for better work

Mon, 30 Jan 2017 08:00:46 +0000

Via the blog of Michael Hyatt, former CEO of Thomas Nelson, John Dumas highlights three skills to develop in order to be more satisfied with what’s gotten done amid everything that has come along in a given day: productivity, discipline, and focus.

Tracking Writing Progress

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 11:09:29 +0000

In How to Write a Lot ( affiliate disclosure), Paul Silvia provides his own progress monitoring system as an example (39–45). Since finishing the book last month, I have been adapting Silvia’s database format to a Google Docs spreadsheet that will track some additional data in addition to the data that he finds helpful. Since it has been helpful thus far, I thought I would make it available with some sample data.

Creating Research Timelines in Excel

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:14:01 +0000

Although it certainly can be used otherwise, a progress tracking system like the one Paul Silvia suggests in his book How to Write a Lot seems to work best for writing that can be open ended: by following a regular writing schedule, projects can regularly and reliably come to completion. What happens, however, if one is working under a deadline (be it self-imposed or not) and, therefore, needs to develop a writing schedule backwards from this due date?