I was never really into books growing up. For some reason or another, I almost always never finished reading a book that I started. Once you’ve gone through a few episodes like that, you pretty much give up on starting the next one. However, in recent years, I felt the rising need to read as a pastor, a preacher, and a software engineer, which eventually surmounted my resistance and I picked up a book. And strangely enough, the book that got me inspired to read, that eventually led me to write blog articles like this one, is a small book on productivity. When you want to inspire people to read, that’s not the kind of book you’d generally recommend. But this little book by Doug Wilson changed my world in many different ways. Few books have that kind of an effect on you, and this is one of them. 

At just 124 pages, this treasure chest is full of good biblical insight, and deep theological roots. It is quite unlike a traditional productivity book which has a 3 steps to this, or 5 steps to that approach. Part of his reason for rowing against that stream is summed up in the question he asks, “Do you want to be efficient like a machine, or fruitful like a tree”?¹ Doug gives us nothing in this book except biblical principles that flow out of sound theology. By the time I was done reading it (which took me 2 weeks, and that’s a record time given my track record), I’d finished reading two other books as well because of Doug’s influence. Ploductivity was rubbing off on me. Yes, it’s titled ploductivity with an ‘l’, and not productivity with an ‘r’. 

If productivity is the responsibility to turn a profit on the innumerable resources God has given us, then ploductivity is the responsibility to do it methodically, deliberately, and intentionally, according to Doug.

At one point he mentions how our guilt of not finishing something we start prevents us from picking up new things (like my poor reading habit), but then he explains the benefit of consistently picking up things that you’re willing to finish slowly, thinking about the long term and not the short term. The practical theology of this book has impacted the way I live and the things I do. This blog is a testament to Doug’s influence through this book, and I couldn’t recommend a better book on productivity that every Christian should store in their armoury.

Footnote

1. Wilson, Douglas. Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth (p. 8). Canon Press. Kindle Edition.