A Productivity Wish List for 2021

2020 was a year unlike any other. If you’re a productivity geek, it didn’t disappoint. Whether we talk about the release of Hey from Basecamp, the delight of using Craft, the ease of Boards within Todoist or the introduction of Nozbe Teams, companies worked hard this past year.

Instead of my past Productivity Awards (see 2016, see 2017) at the end of a calendar year, I’d like to suggest seven things that I would love to see happen in 2021. Each request comes from an app that I have used or currently use. 

Seven things I’d like to see in 2021:

1. OmniFocus for iOS UI improvements. It’s time for better font treatments on OmniFocus for iOS. Am I the only one who can’t stand the Arial font treatment on OF 3 for iOS?  While we’re at it, how about removing those annoying dots under each project that indicate how many todos you have? Finally let’s make the persistent gear icon “hideable” in the top corner of the Home Screen.

2. The use of multi-panels by Todoist on iPad OS. I absolutely adore Todoist and feel that their update schedule is second to none. This one is a bit nit-picky but what the heck: how about a better use of the real estate on iPad OS? There’s just too much screen to not have a better multi-paned viewing of the app. You can see from the image below, the entry takes up way too much real estate for my taste.

3. More control over the left panel within Nozbe Teams. We want to edit, archive and delete tags in Nozbe Teams. While it’s nice to be able to expand/hide the tags, let’s take it to the next level and put some muscle into the left sidebar. 

4. For TickTick to stop copying the features of Todoist. This tweet from the CEO of Todoist is pretty convincing. I’ve had concerns about the lack of TickTick’s transparency for the past year. Nice app with lots of functionality but please, stop the copying. 

5. Font size increase for Things3 on iOS. We know, Things3 is an opinionated app with beautiful UI but phone sizes are larger than ever. Can we please increase the size of a) the fonts and b) the buttons that you need to push to complete and item? 

6. A simpler UI for Notion. Notion is very powerful but still feels like an engineer and a chemist concocted the thing. I can’t think of an average, everyday person who could actually figure the app out. Please, make it simpler so that non-geeks can use Notion and benefit from its endless list of features.

7. A smoother, more reliable UI for Basecamp on iOS. Again, I love Basecamp but find that the iOS app lags behind the desktop and web version. As an example, why does the “attachment” bar take so long to show up when you need it most within a todo item? 

And while we’re at it, how about completely versions of the following:

• Nozbe Personal: Since the company’s been putting a lot of energy towards Nozbe Teams, Personal has suffered. The UI is, ahem...tired. While hundreds of thousands of folks use Personal each month, it’s hard to imagine moving forward without a major redesign. 

• Basecamp 4: it’s not that there’s anything wrong with BC3 but a guy can dream. All Basecamp needs to do is provide some new polish and users will be pleased. For bonus points, a deeper discount for nonprofit users would be a happy surprise.

• OmniFocus 4: this is highly unlikely since OF3 is just a few years old. Nonetheless, it sometimes feels as if the OmniGroup moves so slow since it has so many products. If OF is their flagship, why not put a faster touch on its updates and releases? OF 4 could benefit from a unified experience between iOS and the Mac.

• Things 4: we are going on year four since Things 3 came out but it feels exactly the same as it did in 2017. I’d love to see saved filtering and a much larger font.

I write all of this with a smile. We have it made when it comes to great apps from truly special companies. Let’s hope for a smoother year in 2021 and the thoughtful productivity that goes along with it. 

Do What You Can (and Be at Peace with What You Can’t)

One of the privileges of my career has been to introduce good people to one another. Often, this comes at a time when someone needs a job or when there is an opportunity for mentorship. Knowing how much I’ve benefited from holy, capable mentors, this “handoff” is borderline sacred and certainly part of giving back. I love when I can send an email that says, “Joe, meet Susan, one of the kindness people I know…”

One of those mentors is Fr. Dennis Berry, S.T., a kindly priest who is a Missionary Servant of the Most Holy Trinity. You can listen to his daily podcast here.

Years ago, I invited Fr. Dennis to speak to some young faculty members who clearly had talent and a bright future. His message was simple enough, “You do what you can. As for the rest, be at peace with what you cannot control.”

To be frank, I was disappointed in his message. Really? Do what you can? Was that the best that Fr. Dennis could offer on that particular day? Couldn’t he have reminded us of some obscure text from the Middle Ages that is helpful for our modern day? But no, “do what you can” was all we got.

Simple Truths

“Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry.”

— St. Francis de Sales

Since that day, God has humbled me (about a million times over) and taught me that Fr. Dennis was more right than I could have ever imagined. I’ve since repeated his message to countless employees and friends. His central point was the following:

1. Do what you can. Since most people would rather complain about what others are not doing, this prevents them from taking action personally. Most people, in brutal honesty, do not do what they can.

2. Be at peace with what you cannot control. This is not to say that you ignore what others are (or are not) doing. Rather, you make peace with the very real fact that there are things completely out of your control.

How might we apply Fr. Dennis’ simple message to our time of social distancing and collective isolation? I decided to begin with a list of what I cannot control which include:

• Whether or not the President is listening to his medical advisors.

• Whether the Bishops should have a more muscular voice regarding the reopening of parishes.

• Whether there is a global plan to disrupt planet earth. (You can watch amateur hour unfold on that here)

• Whether the audio for the next Mass I watch online will be clear enough.

If I’m not careful, each of the items above can create anxiety. If I lean into each one too often, I’ll lose sleep and begin to feel paralyzed by fear.

What I Can Control

On the flip side, if I do what I can, I can regain confidence and have permission to do small (but mighty) actions. These include:

• I can choose to have my daily devotional time of prayer.

• I can choose to be fully present to my wife and children, even in the midst of a workday.

• I can choose to provide my family with daily opportunities for group prayer and reflection.

• I can choose to make healthy choices regarding food, sleep and hobbies.

• I can choose to be a positive voice online instead of a Negative Ned.

• I can choose to bring my very best self to work.

As I look at the two lists above, the latter feels better. I can hold each of those in my hands. They don’t feel too heavy.

Each is doable and within my control. It’s what I can do and as for the rest, I’ll be praying to be at peace with those.

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As for me and My House: a Coronavirus Response

“I think they should be practicing social distancing because even if — and I think it's still true that younger people are at much, much less risk of getting into trouble — that doesn't mean they aren't going to get infected and then they are going to infect the older people. So everybody should be taking really good care to avoid infection," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, in early March while appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

The context- the outbreak of the coronavirus. 

Fauci was discussing young people when he referenced “they” as he outlined the importance of social distancing. This phrase, now understood widely in America, wasn’t a part of our vernacular a few weeks ago. Now, it’s the advice of the day in order to help slow the spread of the virus.

Are people heeding his advice?

I live in Bethlehem, PA, a small city of just over 70,000. Schools shut down last week and were mandated by the governor of PA to be closed for a minimum of two weeks. When my wife asked for me to get “a few more things” at the local grocery store, I obliged. I am a good husband after all.

Thinking that the store would be filled only with its workers and maybe a few people wearing masks, I trudged out with my list. When I arrived at ShopRite, I was blown away.

The store was packed.

Not only were there a lot of people, there was clearly no desire to social distance. People were chatting. Others were on their phones doing God knows what. No one had a mask on . Only one woman had rubber gloves. A few elderly women drove around in the motorized carts, trying to reach for Wheat Thins and other items within grabbable distance.

What about the advice from Dr. Fauci? Was I the only one watching CNN, CBSnews and FoxNews?  I bought what I needed and got the heck out of the store.

From Scripture to Everyday Life

The car ride home reminded me of Joshua 24:15 which states, 

“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

It’s not my place to judge the hundreds of others who were at the grocery store on that particular day. Maybe their spouses had sent them, like me, with a list of goods. All I know is that I’m responsible for how my family- not only in our practice of the Christian faith but in temporal things.

Things like social distancing.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be hunkering down. If we go to the store, if will be during non-peak hours. We will look for ways to find normalcy. We can do what is ours to do. How about you and your house? What is your prudent response to the virus?

How the Bible Can Anchor Your Prayer Life

This post is not to try and convince you that the Bible is important. You and I already know that. Rather, I’ll try to remind us of its gentle power within our daily prayer lives.

As a Catholic, I am often surrounded by other believers who don’t actually read their Bibles on a regular basis. This sounds judgy, I know. Still, I know enough Catholics for enough time to acknowledge an ugly truth- most don’t read their Bibles. Many are still strong disciples of Christ but simply haven’t made Scripture a core component of their daily lives.

While this genuinely makes me sad, the reasons are similar to why most Christians (writ-large) don’t have a daily prayer time:

• No one ever taught us how to do it, resulting in…

• a lack of confidence to try…

• and a sense of private shame that we don’t read our Bibles more often.

Like saving for retirement or personal finances, Bible reading can fall into the same murky category of our lives. I’d like to challenge that and invite each of us to begin anew.

“Scripture helps diminish the distance between God and us because we can become part of the story.”

— Dr. Robert Wicks

The Bible, as the sacred text of all Christians, is like an anchor of our faith. It provides a rudder to help us navigate life’s challenges. It informs our decisions and reminds us that we are loved. As Dr. Robert Wicks said in Everyday Simplicity, “Scripture helps diminish the distance between God and us because we can become part of the story.”

This story is one of God loving all people to the point of sending his very son, Jesus. As Christopher West says, the entirety of salvation history is summed up this way, “God wants to marry us.” The Bible not only reminds us of this truth but gives a backstage pass to God’s plan to woo us and be in relationship with us.

Ok I’m convinced! The Bible is important. You probably feel the same way.

But, as is always the $5M question, how do I get familiar with my Bible and then incorporate it into my daily prayer life? Here are some very simple things that you can do to get familiar (again) with your Bible:

1. Find your Bible and spend two minutes with it. Don’t have one? Go over to Amazon and buy one. Find one that you enjoy holding- not too big, not too small, etc.

2. Choose to read either the daily Mass readings or start with one particular book. Catholics are familiar with a liturgical calendar and if you read the daily readings, you’ll cover the entire Bible in about three years.

3. Make a decision that you’ll read your Bible every day. Just choose a small section, a paragraph or two and make progress that way.

4. Use a technique called Lectio Divina. For a primer, check this out.

5. Over time, let your daily Bible reading become a spiritual anchor for your day. You’ll eventually feel as if something is missing if you go a day without reading your Bible- that’s the goal!

Eventually, you’ll find that your daily Bible reading will become a reference point. It will stay with you during the day and then, when you least expect it, the Lord will pull it out of you, holding up a key idea or phrase for you to savor.

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Five Things You Can Do For Lent (and why they matter a whole lot!)

Ash Wednesday begins on March 6, 2019 and for millions of people around the world, this means something- action. All of us want to put our faith into action and Lent is the perfect time to do this.

People will begin a 40 day sprint towards Easter and will either give things up - a sort of sacrifice- and also try out new things. It’s also a wonderful time for humility, a time to acknowledge that our prayer lives are rarely what they ought to be. As St. Josemaria Escriva said, “You don’t know how to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and as soon as you have said, ‘Lord, I don’t know how to pray!’ you can be sure you’ve already begun.”

I figured it would be interesting to connect five actions you can take during Lent to my upcoming book, The Five Habits of Prayerful People. I wrote The Five Habits in order to provide a virtual toolbox of strategies for prayer. It’s designed for the busy person in mind.

Before we link the book with Lenten action, let’s remind ourselves why Lent matters in the first place. Lent comes from an old word meaning “lengthen”- as the days get longer, the sunlight returns and we inch ever closer to Easter. Since Easter is all about Jesus triumph over the cross through his resurrection, Christians have, for thousands of years, practiced a sort of “retreat” during Lent. This looks like, not surprisingly, a series of actions designed to help us get ready for Easter. 

“Lent is a fitting time for self-denial.”

— Pope Francis

If you “do Lent right”, you’re more likely to enter into the deeper mysteries of the season and as a result, draw closer to Jesus. As Pope Francis said, “Lent is a fitting time for self-denial; we would do well to ask ourselves what we can give up in order to help and enrich others by our own poverty. Let us not forget that real poverty hurts: no self-denial is real without this dimension of penance. I distrust a charity that costs nothing and does not hurt."

The problem of course is that we get distracted, tired or bored during Lent. The things we resolve to give up can become a distant memory if we’re not laser-focused on the task at hand.

Ok, let’s now match a strategy with each of the Five Habits:

1. Habit of Passion and Pursuit >> Begin to enjoy five minutes of pure silence each day. Start with one minute each day for a week. Each week, add a minute to your silence. Invite God into the stillness.

2. Habit of Presence >> Look people in the eye. When you are in public and in passing or when you are one-on-one with someone… work to give them your full attention.

3. Habit of Preparation and Planning >> Choose the tools you’ll use during your morning quiet time. This will likely be a Bible and journal. Besides that, what else speaks to you? An icon? A crucifix? Identify and group the tools you’ll use. Place them somewhere that you’ll have your daily quiet time.

4. Habit of Persistence and Perseverance>> Install a quote that inspires you in a place you’ll see it. This might be a quote from a saint or a Bible quote. Put the quote inside your journal or Bible. Or, have the quote framed and placed in a spot where you’ll see it often.

5. Habit of Pondering>> Take one day off from technology each week. This is the single most powerful strategy I’ve used in the last five years. Step back from your phone and give God one day a week to break through the noise of digital stimulation.

These strategies really work. More significantly, they matter a whole lot. They contribute to a more prayerful life and collectively will help you to slow down. When we slow down, we are more present and it’s much easier to find God in everyday life. 

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Quick Win: Learn the One Phrase that Will Transform Your Prayer

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Is It Selfish to Take Time To Pray?

Maybe you’ve heard of it? Exodus 90 has taken the Catholic world by storm in the past year. A program for men to practice ascetic routines, prayer and fraternity, Exodus 90 has become synonymous with “I’m serious about my faith”.

I was at a recent event and one of the attendees was on day 33 of Exodus 90. At one point, he broke off from the group in order to find a chapel and pray. I was impressed. It wasn’t as if he got up in front of everyone and made a scene. Rather, he used the free time in the meeting schedule to head off and pray.

When was the last time that you broke off from the pace of your day to pray?

This “breaking away” can feel very selfish. What will people say? Will anyone notice? How will it be interpreted?

A bit of context here: Jesus took time for prayer. Luke 5:16 says this about the Lord’s time management, “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

We could end here and just leave it at, “If Jesus did it, I can too...” This would be reasonable.

But how about some other practical bits of advice? Here are three that come to mind:

1. Don’t think that everyone is watching you. The man I was with at the meeting? I doubt that anyone even noticed that he was gone.  The same goes for you and me when we take a few minutes alone to pray.

2. Many good things in life can be seen as “selfish”. Eating healthy foods is selfish and also something you should do. Working out is selfish and also something you should do. Getting 7-8 hours of rest is selfish... you get the point.

3. Sometimes you just need to get away. As you build spiritual momentum, God will impress on you the times when you just need to get away. 

Is it selfish to pray? Sure. Does that mean that it’s something to avoid? Hardly.

Anything that’s good for us has a level of self-reference but that shouldn’t stop us from doing it. Give yourself permission to get alone with God and together, get on the same page. You’ll be glad you did.

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Quick Win: Watch this Video about Morning Quiet Times

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