A Style of Productivity That Goes Where You Go
Part 13 of the Working Church Series
Kerry Robinson is one of the most influential Catholics in the United States. Before assuming the role as head of Catholic Charities USA, she headed up the Leadership Roundtable and before that was the point person for the Yale Catholic Center’s massively successful advancement program.
Kerry’s story is similar to that of Ken Jennings, currently the President of Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, NJ. Before Notre Dame, he led St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in CA, DePaul Catholic High School in NJ and Benedictine Academy in NJ. Each stop has marked a chapter of exemplary service to the Church.
What Kerry and Ken have in common, besides a tireless work ethic and a strong Catholic faith, is their ability to work at high levels within different contexts. These are not leaders we would describe as “one hit wonders”. Rather, they have made a huge impact at each stop along their way.
Their productivity has been portable. It’s traveled with them in different states, different organizations and in different seasons of life.
It’s one thing to be successful at one place (which is hard enough). It’s an entirely different feat to excel in multiple places along the way.
The Qualities of Calm Productivity
Both Kerry and Ken have been wildly successful in their professional careers. Their examples surface some of the qualities of calm productivity which include:
Portable: a person who practices calm productivity can find success in large and small organizations. She can do a stellar job as a class mom or as the CEO of a company because her productivity system goes where she goes.
Flexible: a person who practices calm productivity can adjust to different settings, to different workplace teams and to different sets of expectations. Because his system is well established, he can flex to seasons of high work load and to times of a lighter list of tasks.
Expansive: a person who practices calm productivity can take on massive projects, long projects, and complex projects because his system is ordered and strong. He is reticent to complain because his productivity system can absorb what gets assigned to him. If you’ve ever been “voluntold” that you’re doing something, your calm productivity will come in handy.
Simple: a person who practices calm productivity uses a basic set of tools (todo list, calendar, documents, the weekly review, etc.) to keep things as simple as possible. She isn’t switching apps every other week or wasting time tinkering around the edges of her work. She likes to keep things simple.
Organized: a person who practices calm productivity is likely neat, tidy and ordered. She enjoys routines and maintains a clean workspace. Calm productivity allows her to find things when she needs them.
Pleasant: a person who practices calm productivity knows how to moderate his emotions. You know what you’re going to get from one day to the next. People like working with him because his calm work-style is attractive and pleasant.
Prayerful: a person who practices calm productivity unites his work with his prayer. He knows full well that the Lord is there to be found in the mundane, ordinary tasks of his day.
God’s Will, Found in the Ordinary
One of the joys of being an introvert (and I imagine this goes for you extros too) is the act of re-reading books. These are gifts from the past that hold timeless truths for the present. I recently picked up Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation, a book I first read over 20 years ago.
There is a certain mystery in seeing text that I underlined as a young man, now reading it as someone who is much older.
One passage struck me and relates to this idea of calm productivity, “The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work.”
Calm productivity discovers God’s will within the work. Interruptions, meetings, ministry expectations, colleagues’ perspectives- all reveal something of God’s Providence.
Which of the qualities mentioned above resonate most with you? Which one challenges you and invites you into deeper prayer?