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How to Say No to the Urgent But Not Important

The urgent and unimportant easily consumes more time than it should. But 5 strategies can help you say the “no” that your “yes” really needs.

July 7, 2025 Â· 6 min Â· J. David Stark
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Why You Need to Ship for Feedback after Distribution

You can’t know your research is publishable unless you ship it. But even publishing should involve shipping for feedback.

February 17, 2025 Â· 4 min Â· J. David Stark
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How to Ship Your Research for Distribution

You can’t know your research is publishable unless you ship it. But even as you ship for distribution, you should still ship for feedback.

December 9, 2024 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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How to Ship Your Research for Feedback

You can’t know your research is publishable unless you ship it. But you can improve your odds by shipping it for feedback.

December 3, 2024 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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When Do You Need to Wait to Ship?

To know if your research is publishable, you need to ship it. But if you’re a student, you also might need to wait before you ship.

November 4, 2024 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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How Do You Know What Color Your Research Is?

Sometimes, it can be hard to know whether your research is actually publishable. There are two steps to find out.

October 28, 2024 Â· 5 min Â· J. David Stark
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Two Problems You Can Have Creating Purple Research

You can have two problems creating purple research. Black or brown research might look purple. Or purple research might look black or brown.

October 23, 2024 Â· 4 min Â· J. David Stark
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Your Research Is Publishable When It's Purple

Determining whether research is publishable is essentially the same action as seeing whether a cow is purple.

September 30, 2024 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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Can Your Research Really Be for Your Faith Community?

Faith communities can be perfectly valid audiences for your research. And like any audience, that who will naturally shape your what.

September 23, 2024 Â· 4 min Â· J. David Stark
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What Do You Want Your Research to Be?

Once you know who your research is for, you can then determine what it means to create publishable research for them.

September 9, 2024 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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Your Research Actually Isn't Just for Your Professor

If you’re a student, your research isn’t just for your professor because your assignment likely imitates something outside your class.

September 2, 2024 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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4 Questions to Help You Know Whether Something Is Important

To start cutting through the clamor of the urgent and discern whether something is actually important, you need to ask these 4 questions.

August 30, 2024 Â· 8 min Â· J. David Stark
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Who Is Your Research Really For?

Clearly understanding what you want in your research is important. Still more foundational, though, is grasping who it’s for.

August 12, 2024 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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Why You Need to Back Up Your Research Locally

Your research is worth protecting. Nobody will ever have more incentive to keep it safe than you do. So be sure you have a robust backup plan.

June 24, 2024 Â· 4 min Â· J. David Stark
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The Ultimate App You Need to Use for Academic Writing

A lot goes into writing in biblical studies.1 And any number of tools can help you marshal your research into strong prose. For instance, Logos can give you access to hundreds of shelves’ worth of resources, Zotero can help you manage and cite this literature, and Word can give you a place to craft your arguments. But there’s another application that’s vastly more important than all of these combined. ...

April 1, 2024 Â· 4 min Â· J. David Stark
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How to Easily Create a Searchable Backup Archive with Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect is a wonderful backup tool. It does have a missing feature, but thankfully, a comparable solution is available.

February 20, 2024 Â· 5 min Â· J. David Stark
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How Do You Know When Something Is Urgent?

The sooner something matters, the greater its urgency. The greater the urgency, the more whatever situation will press upon you.

July 31, 2023 Â· 4 min Â· J. David Stark
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You Need to Decide What Gets Priority, but How?

Deciding what gets priority can be tricky. But a classic decision matrix can bring clarity and guide the kinds of actions you take.

July 24, 2023 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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Your Research Is Important, but It's Not All-Important

If you never make time for your research, your project will go nowhere. But making time starts with deciding when you won’t do research.

July 17, 2023 Â· 6 min Â· J. David Stark
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How Todoist Can Support Your Work and Life

School, work, and life are complex. You need a way of managing your commitments. If you’re looking for this, Todoist might be the tool for you.

July 19, 2021 Â· 11 min Â· J. David Stark
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You Need to Scale Up Your Research Project Timeline

You need to scale up your research timeline because of inaccuracies in small samples, differences between projects, and the planning fallacy.

July 12, 2021 Â· 4 min Â· J. David Stark
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How Long Will Your Research Project Really Take?

You can better understand how long your research project may take if you track your progress, set your scope, and scale your timeline.

July 5, 2021 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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Who Is Your Research Question Good For?

Your research question can be known or unknown by your audience. But they need to have the question before you can answer it.

June 28, 2021 Â· 3 min Â· J. David Stark
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How Can You Make Your Research Remarkable?

Purple, or remarkable, research shares some common elements. But it can also have different shades depending on who it’s for.

April 12, 2021 Â· 4 min Â· J. David Stark