If I was to connect this book to church planting for one second and to be honest it is hard to do so because of its emphasis on a remote lifestyle, I would say the author presses on something very important. He writes a lot about how we have this big desire to be efficient in our work when really we should first think about being effective. It is very easy to be efficient doing things we don’t need to do. In fact I am very good at this. But the first thing is to realize whether what you are doing is worth doing in the first place? I think of church planters specifically and in our desire to prove to others that we are actually doing something, we will try to add things to our plate that we really don’t even need to do (and are definitely NOT effective). We create busying structures to justify our work as church planters. This is incredibly non-effective, no matter how efficient you can be at it.

I understand that Tim Ferriss is trying to help you outsource your life and reduce your working time so you can take up other hobby’s and life goals, but the truth is still there, if you can do what your doing in 4 hours, it is really not worth spreading that task over 8 hours, just to make someone think you’re busy. And if you are doing a task ( a certain outreach or program) and it is really not that effective, you really might as well drop it and go golfing for the afternoon. From experience, your sanity as a church planter is probably more important than whether you can “say” you piled on the work this month.

There is a lot more to be said about efficiency versus effectiveness as a church planter, and as I have commented in the past I have found either lazy or overworked (a hamster running on a wheel) church planters. But wouldn’t it be great if we were more effective in the tasks that work, and spent less time doing the things that didn’t so we could really impact our neighbourhoods?

I think that on a foundational church planting scale (those who never plan on working and church planting at the same time) this book is probably not a priority, but as a quick side note, I will say that if you are a bi-vocational pastor/ church planter this book is a must read. I personally work a full time job and lead the open house, and this book was incredibly helpful in guiding me through the things i need to do and what I am just busying myself with. For the bi-vocational pastor, freeing your “working” time so you can have more time with people in your church is very effective. And to go further, being able to minimize the church activities so that you can be effective in your job is also critical. So if you are a church planter, and are or considering to be a bi-vocational church planter I would give this book a 4.5/5. However, if you never plan to work and church plant then maybe this book wouldn’t be too helpful for you, but its a fun read anyhow.