Our home, work and school environments, have thoroughly drilled us on how to accomplish our tasks so that our grades and our performance reviews can give us a measure of our ability to accurately complete our given tasks in a specified time. We do this in order to check off items on our list of goals achieved as well as making sure we collect our shiny medals for our results produced, only to be told, we need to do more and accomplish more. In our fast paced, distracted, future-focused culture, many of us are skilled from birth, in the art of being very productive inclusive of creating innovative ways of get things done.
“Traditional” system are constantly telling us that the ability to do more and doing it faster is the answer to being productive in life.
So why are so many productive persons feeling frustrated, burnout and hopeless?
Do we know what are the right things to get done?
How do we identify what needs to get done?
Where did we derive our standards from?
Interestingly, there are thousands of books, seminars and webinars on productivity however many persons still struggle with this infamous task. We have been created in the image of God, so to create, being fruitful and multiplying, is being true to our God-given design, so what exactly is the real problem?
How do we determine the real work that needs to get done?
How do you focus your efforts?
All of us, or many of us, want to make an impact in the world and if it is a significant impact, we want it and we want it now.
To make a significant impact in today’s productivity-obsessed world, we need to seriously consider this:
focus less on productivity and more on presence.
What if we approach our day, week, month, quarter, and year with the intentionality of choosing presence over productivity. The world absolutely needs our productivity, but what family, friends, colleagues, neighbours and our own heart needs more of, is the scarce resource of our presence. Have we allowed the world around use to define our rhythms of life?
Both productivity and presence can create significant impact.
- How, we need to ask, what are the barriers to developing a non-conformity of the current lifestyle of productivity?
- Do we need to be re-wire?
- How do we make the shift to develop the power of presence?
- how do we get there?
- How did we end up overvaluing productivity and undervaluing presence.
- Have we gotten the order of our priorities backward?
Is the power of presence an underdeveloped talent that rivals with the power of productivity? Unfortunately, in the name of being productive, many persons don’t have the time or the desire to be present or fully engaged :-
- to God.
- to our own heart
- to people
- to reality
- to the moment in front of them
- to our different senses
Our distracted, future-focused culture is in desperate need for skilled persons in the art of being present. The questions is, are we afraid to face reality? Is it easier to look forward and create the future rather than slowing down and being present to life?
Practical Keys to develop the art of being presence
- Seek wise accountability partners. Make a deliberate decision to create a support system around you to help close the gaps in key areas of life. Ensure that you can identify people who understand that the reward from wisdom is far greater than the reward from work.
- Guard your boundaries. Put intentional effort and discipline into managing what you listen to, what you watch, who we spend time with, where you spend your time and what you read
- Monitor your Presence over Productivity Ratio. Think about how you are currently spending time each week vs. how you want to spend time.
- Learn to manage self. Spend more time managing you than managing time, which can compound stress.
- Get support and learn how to be honest about what really matters and what you believe. Your honesty about what you actually value (compared to what you say you value) is very important.
Developing the art of presence will take intentionality, support and practice. Why not create time-block space in your calendar where instead of focusing on “getting things done” you can focus on “being present.” Slowly turn the volume down on productivity, with time, something good will begin to happen inside of you and through you. You’ll become true to your God-given design. We are created in the image of a productive Creator, however we are also created in the image of an “unproductive” Presence. Let’s check daily to see if we are enjoying our life moments across all areas of our lives. Eventually, we will realize we were made whole through submission to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and not through our works.