Be Productive Like JesusSample

Jesus seemed to have an acute sense of time-management. He accomplished a vast amount of things in his three years of ministry. In fact, John writes at the end of his gospel: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25) As we look at Jesus’ management of time, it seems fitting to look almost exclusively in the book of Mark. Mark is by far the shortest of the four gospels, and the writer often gets right to the point. Christ seemed to as well. The word “immediately” is used over 40 times in the gospel of Mark. Jesus got things done. He was decisive. He didn’t get distracted.

To take a particular instance as an example, in Mark 8:1-26, Jesus feeds five thousand people after teaching them for three days. He then gets on a boat, crosses to the region Dalmanutha and speaks with the Pharisees. After that, he again enters his boat, landing in Bethsaida, where he meets a blind man, whom he immediately heals. He does all of this in just 26 verses! Perhaps it is just the way Mark chooses to write, but there are many such instances of Jesus completing one task after the other. He never works with urgency, he took time to preach for three days, he took time to speak with his disciples, and he took time for the blind man. He also, however, doesn’t hesitate. That is perhaps the biggest thing to notice in reading through the book of Mark––Jesus never hesitates.

This is a more practical and easy attribute of Jesus’ ministry to apply to our own workload: the most efficient way to get things done is to do them immediately. What tasks and decisions do we hesitate on? We can learn from Jesus. Take a task and complete it immediately, without hesitation.