Plus how C.S. Lewis published his top 8 books in just 6 years
In this episode, authors Mark Batterson (Win the Day and Do it for a Day) and Jordan Raynor (Redeeming Your Time) discuss:
Want to go deeper on these topics? Pick-up a copy of Mark's books (Win the Day and Do it for a Day) and Jordan's (Redeeming Your Time).
[00:00:11] JR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Redeem the Day Podcast, a seven-episode series aimed at helping you be more purposeful, present, and productive. I'm Jordan Raynor, author of Redeeming Your Time, and I'm joined by Mark Batterson, author of Do It for a Day and Win the Day.
Mark, we were just talking before we started recording. You're a fan of C.S. Lewis. Yeah?
[00:00:36] MB: I am a fan of C.S. Lewis and I've been dying since the last episode. You’ve mentioned an interesting rather obscure story from Lewis's life, and so don't keep us waiting any longer, Jordan.
[00:00:54] JR: Listen, I'm kidding. Maybe you know this story, maybe you don't. But it's pretty obscure. All right, so we all know Lewis. A lot of people know Lewis was a pretty eccentric guy, right? He drank beers at 10:00 in the morning with JRR Tolkien. He made up his own rules for Scrabble. Maybe the most eccentric chapter of his life had to do with this woman named Janie Moore. C.S. Lewis fought in World War One, and he made a promise to his best friend, this guy named Paddy Moore, the son of Janie Moore, that if either of the guys were going to die in battle, the other one would look after the deceased’s family, right? So Paddy Moore dies. Do you know this, by the way?
[00:01:36] MB: No.
[00:01:36] JR: All right. So Paddy Moore dies. Lewis gets a war injury of his own. He is discharged and he makes good on his promise. He comes back to the UK. He moves in with Paddy's sister and mother, Janie, who Lewis there upper called Mrs. Moore. A lot of biographers suggest that this was a romantic relationship that C.S. Lewis was basically shacking up with his former best mate’s mother, which is kind of wild, before he came to faith in Christ, and everything was really happy for a while. In fact, Lewis called the Moore’s family, even though his dad and his brother were still very much alive.
Everything is good for a while, until Mrs. Moore started making it impossible for Lewis to do his work. She would interrupt him all day long, right? He would be writing a book, and she would feign a fall and come, and Jack would help her up. She would say she was like very shaken or whatever. She would make up odd tasks around the house for him to do that were just like totally not urgent, right? But Lewis, to his credit, he never complained. He fulfilled his duty for 30 years, and then Mrs. Moore died. Once she died, Lewis’s productivity went through the freaking roof. In the six years after Mrs. Moore died, C.S. Lewis wrote 10 books, compared to 4 books that he wrote the previous six years. They weren't just any books. Of those 10 books, it was basically the books that still account for 90% of his sales, Mere Christianity and all seven of The Chronicles of Narnia. It’s a great story, right?
[00:03:16] MB: Yes.
[00:03:17] JR: So today's episode, we're asking what happened, right? The answer is, for the first time in his life, Lewis was experiencing the magic of deep work, this ability to focus on one important thing at a time. So in this episode, we're going to talk about the enemies in our fight for depth. We don't have Mrs. Moores running around our house, but we have the equivalent, I would argue. We're going to talk about how practically we can do deep work like Lewis did and we're going to talk about how we can cultivate depth, not just at work but also at home, as we seek to build relationships with our spouses, our kids, and our friends.
Mark, in your book, Win the Day, you cited this study, in which the psychologist found that, this blew my mind, the average person spends nearly 50% of their time thinking about something other than what they're doing in the present moment, right?
[00:04:15] MB: Yeah.
[00:04:15] JR: Why is this?
[00:04:17] MB: Well, and what that means is we're half present half the time, which means we're half alive. I think that we just aren't good at managing these three time zones, so to speak. You have to – Well, if we were in an elevator, Jordan, the way I would say it is that yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery. You have to win the day or do it for a day. But you have to bury dead yesterdays. You really have to learn the lesson, but then turn the page and let it go. I think a lot of us are prisoners to one or two or three things in our past, and I don't want to glance right over that. I mean, trauma, PTSD, very thing, and there are things that trigger us. So that is part of life.
But then it's also the future. We get paralyzed by our anxiety or we fixate on the future, instead of really fully living in the moment that is gifted to us. This is the human condition. Some of us are better at it than others. I often ask people the question. I'm kind of curious for you. There are people who are more past-oriented and people who are more future-oriented. What would be your leaning? I would have a guess here, but what would be your leaning?
[00:05:40] JR: Yeah. I'm definitely more future-oriented. But either way, these are internal distractions that fight us from deep work and depth at home because we're constantly thinking about the past or the future and not the president, right?
[00:05:55] MB: Yeah, absolutely. So you've got to figure out some of those tricks of the trade, which is part of what I love about your book that it's so practical. You brought up C.S. Lewis. There's another writer from that neck of the woods, a little bit more modern writer named J.K. Rowling.
[00:06:14] JR: Yes, I'm so glad you're going here.
[00:06:17] MB: This little series that some kid named Harry Potter. But I love the way that she was facing one of those deadlines. Every writer runs into this like, “I can't seem to concentrate. I can't get it done,” and so this moment where she had to check into a hotel. If I remember right, I think it was a four or five-star hotel, must be nice, and said, “I'm not going to check out until I have a book to show for it.” So this idea of leveraging deadlines or, in the world of habit formation, what would be called commitment devices, that you kind of force yourself into a corner. Sometimes, that allows for that deep work. It reminds me of Parkinson's Law, right? That if you have two weeks, it'll take two weeks. If you have two months, it'll take two months. This idea that work contracts or expands to fill whatever time we have to do it. So, yeah, I think there are things that we have to do to really force ourselves just to be fully present doing what we're doing right here right now.
[00:07:27] JR: I love the Rowling story. I'd heard that before. It's such a good example of a grand gesture, right? It's like this one time you spend a crazy amount of money or time on something, and it elevates the perceived importance of the task and the deadline, which I love. But, yeah, like you said, not all of us can afford to check ourselves into a five-star hotel for two months. So I want to share something really practical about this, how we could do this on a day-to-day basis, because I think you're really wise, and this is the pastor and you coming out to spot those internal distractions that keep us from death, right? Dead yesterdays, unborn tomorrows that are distracting us.
But we also have to recognize that there are a lot of external distractions and specifically like incoming messages, text message, emails, Slack DMs, like whatever. I'm curious for you, Mark. Do you find these things, just destroying your ability to be productive when they are pinging at you? I imagine you probably don't have them pinging at you, right?
[00:08:29] MB: Well, my ringer on my phone is very rarely on, and I won’t answer a call if I don't recognize the number. I will, by the way, I have a rule that if my kids text me, I don't care who I'm meeting with or where I am. I always respond. Even if it's, “Hey, I'm in the middle of a meeting. Is it urgent,” I just want my family to know that they have immediate access to me. But I'm pretty good on boundaries, otherwise.
One thing that's helped me, Jordan, I don't know how you organize your week, but I have what I would call meeting days. So Tuesday is going to be I'm in meeting mode, and it's going to be wall to wall with very few gaps. Those are the days I get home and give my wife Laura a little bit longer hug because I'm kind of hanging on her because I'm exhausted. But then that earns me back study days if I'm preaching on the weekend or writing days if I'm in one of those writing seasons. So finding days that are devoted to different purposes allows me to be in a certain mental mode, and I found that to be pretty critical. What are some of your tricks of the trade?
[00:09:47] JR: Yeah, so I don't see my days like that. I have done that in different seasons. But what I have found to be totally critical is taking control over when I check my messages because this is such a rare thing in our world. Offer quick analogy here. Imagine, listeners, if the mailman, instead of coming in your house once a day, started coming 150 times a day, but he didn't stay at the curb. He got out of his car, came to your front door, rang the doorbell, and you got up from whatever you're doing, took the mail. Maybe you opened it, maybe you don't, but you at least steal a glance to who it's from. That'd be crazy but that is precisely what we do, right?
[00:10:32] MB: That's brilliant.
[00:10:33] JR: And I would argue, we just cannot do deep work and cultivate deep relationships at home if this is the case, right? I want to share in a minute. I want to share some really practical steps for helping people take control over when they check their messages. But, first, it sounds like you're actually pretty good this, Mark. I'm curious because I hear objections to this practice a lot from salespeople, from pastors, who are like, “I got to be responsive all the time. I can't miss anything urgent.” What's been your experience here because it sounds like you're pretty good at this?
[00:11:07] MB: Well, I've gotten better, but it's the school of hard knocks. Many, many years ago, I wasn't so good at boundaries, and my wife and I hit a critical spot where she literally said, “Mark, this isn't what I signed up for.” That's hard to hear. It was a reality check that I was going in way too many directions. So I actually started putting boundaries in place that I wouldn't take more than 12 overnight speaking trips in a year. I dialed it back to seven. I'll give the church one night a week because I got to help the kids with homework.
Part of it depends on the season that you're in. There are going to be seasons where you're going to have to counterbalance one way or the other. But at the end of the day, Jordan, I want to be famous in my home, and it's hard to be famous in your home if you aren't home. So we have different things that we've employed at different times. Occasionally, it's day off, phone off. I think most people know when my Sabbath is, sundown on Sunday to sundown on Monday. Because I'm a pastor, that is my Sabbath. Generally, people respect that if you put that boundary in place.
Those are a few of the things that I've done that have allowed me to be fully present at home. Yet, like everybody else, let's be honest, if you do check your email late at night, I promise you, that's when you'll get the urgent email. That's when you'll get something that will actually make it tough for you to get the kind of deep sleep that you need because it usually is when crisis happens.
[00:12:47] JR: I’vealso found that when I take control over when I'm checking my messages to set boundaries here, I don't really miss anything that's truly urgent, right? Have you found the same thing to be true?
[00:12:59] MB: No. I mean, in that the whole purpose of a Sabbath, in my humble opinion, is God wants to prove that He's going to keep the planets in orbit, even if we rest for a day.
[00:13:13] JR: Amen. Yeah.
[00:13:14] MB: Can I share one of my favorite stories? It's I have a Peter Marshall Pastor Church here in DC in the 1950s. He was the Senate chaplain and he had this season, Jordan, where he had to take a timeout for ministry because he was so stressed and so physically drained. When he came back from that sabbatical, someone asked him what he learned. I love what he said. He said, “I learned that the Kingdom of God goes on without Peter Marshall.” Let's have a little dose of humility here that it's going to keep going without us.
[00:13:53] JR: That's exactly right. But it's going to keep going when we're not checking our cellphones all the time. So all right, I want to get real practical. If you can't afford like J.K. Rowling to check yourself into a five-star hotel, here's some practical steps you can take to confine when you check your messages every day. Number one, step one, you choose ahead of time when you're going to check messages. Don't be like the mailman getting up every five minutes when he shows up at your door, right? What's way more important than the number of times you check texts and emails is that you choose. So if you're in sales, you're probably going to have to check your email a lot more than Mark does, writing books and leaving church, right? But what matters is that you're in control here.
Step number two, Mark, you already alluded to this, build a list of VIPs that can have access to you outside those times, that can have access to you at all times. So, Mark, for you, that's your kids, right? Your wife. For me, it's my wife, my kids’ school, because they're too young to have a cellphone, my assistant, a couple of other people. I just add those people to the favorites list on my iPhone and then turn Phone on do not disturb, what you already mentioned in a previous episode, right? Now, phone calls from those people and those people alone can come through, right?
Then the final step, step three, just go to the VIPs in your life and proactively set clear expectations about your response time, right? Send them a text, send them an email, send them real simple like this, “Hey, listen. In order to be fully focused on you and my work, whatever I'm focused on the moment, from now on, I'm only checking email and texts at this time, this time, this time, and this time. However, you're a VIP in my life. So if you need me outside those times, don't email me. Don't text message me. Call my cell phone. And because you're a VIP, it's going to come through every single time. And if I'm available, I'm going to answer.”
If you do those three steps, you're going to get so much more deep work done and be fully present at home because it's not just deep work that we want. We want to cultivate a deep life, and this is part of being famous at home, right, Mark?
[00:16:04] MB: Yeah, absolutely. Yup.
[00:16:06] JR: I have found that in today's distracted world, our undivided attention and presence is like the most valuable present we can give our kids especially, right? Because I can be physically present with my kids and be totally absent mentally. Have you experienced that, Mark?
[00:16:26] MB: Absolutely. I've even experienced it a few times with my Heavenly Father. By the way, I love Eugene Peterson. I think he defined worship as interrupting your focus on yourself. I've always loved that idea. I think worship is turning our full affection and full attention to God. It’s the gift of worship that we give to Him but it's also the gift that we give to one another. It sure seems like attention is a resource that is scarce these days.
[00:17:03] JR: More than oil, more than water, whatever. The resource most at risk of becoming extinct in our generation is attention and the ability to fully focus on one important thing at a time. Hey, Mark, for you at home, let’s talk about a home specifically, what practically do you do digital hygiene habits, whatever, to ensure that you're fully present with your family?
[00:17:29] MB: Yeah. Well, I think life is lived in stages, and so much of this depends. Do you have a baby that you're holding, and feeding, and changing all the time? Do you have a teenager who retreats to their room, and you have to coax them out with food a couple of times a day? Or are you an empty nester? A lot of it depends on that life stage. I think the things that immediately come to mind is it's critical, one, how you start the day and with a degree of intentionality.
So when our kids were younger, pretty good chance before they got out the door that I was going to pronounce a blessing on them. May you grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with man. That we were going to try to create some conversations around the dinner table that were more than just mere chatter but actually had a little bit of substance to them.
I think so much of it, Jordan, is leveraging those rhythms of life almost like the Shema in the Old Testament that when you're going out or coming in or at home, at work, it's about what are those rituals and routines that make them meaningful? I've even found that doing the dishes – Right now, it's my youngest son, Josiah, who tends to get this duty, but that means I'm on the clear duty. So even doing those little things together, you leverage them and you find a way to make them meaningful and you create conversation. Then even walking our dog together at night is a way to just catch up on the day. So I think it's seeing and seizing those little moments that can turn into conversation that allows us to fully vet and fully process what we're thinking, what we're feeling, and generally our day.
[00:19:32] JR: That's great. Yes, something I've been doing for a few years now to really help me practically stay fully focused on my family at night, I convert my cellphone essentially into a landline for the two and a half hours I spend with my kids every night. So when I end my workday at five o'clock, I take my cellphone and I put it in our master bathroom, right? I put it on do not disturb so that the people who really need to reach me and need to reach me, they'll call and I can answer that. But otherwise, my phone is out of sight and out of mind. I'm not tempted to check Instagram. I'm not tempted to check text messages. I could be fully focused on my kids, on my wife. That habit has been a game changer. It's one of a bunch of practices that I outlined in Redeeming Your Time.
Here's the thing, guys. Life's too short to spend time on things that only deserve half of our attention, right? Take these practices that Mark and I have shared in others and let them help you do deep work, cultivate deep relationships, and just live a deeper, more focused, more Christ-like life. Jesus was crazy focused on the people and things He was doing in the gospels. We can and should be too.
Hey, that's it for today's episode of The Redeem Your Day podcast. Up next, on episode five, Mark and I are talking about three rhythms of rest that are counter intuitively some of the most productive things we can do. We'll see you there.
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