Relationships are like riding a bike—you can’t ride a bike while staying still. In the same way, there’s no such thing as a neutral relationship. Your relationships are inevitably moving you in a direction either towards or away from your goals.
This is also true with our non-human relationships of food, time, and money. These relationships are either moving you forward, or holding you back.
Last week we talked about our relationship with food. Today, let’s talk about our relationship with time.
TIME
Time is unique from food and money in that everyone on the planet gets the exact same amount of time in a given day. Every day, 24 hours comes and goes, no matter who you are or where you live. No one gets more. No one gets less.
Imagine getting a cash bonus of $86,400 every day, and if you don’t use it, you lose it. This is exactly what we’ve been given with time—86,400 seconds in every day that we’ll never get back.
How we choose to manage our relationship with time is really up to us. We can spend it, waste it, or invest it. But one thing is true for all of us, it’s a single-use gift.
“Lost time is never found again.” -Benjamin Franklin
Here are three time tips you might find helpful as a parent that I strive to live by to maximize my time.
1. Start early.
As a pastor and a parent, I find that taking advantage of early morning time is not only enjoyable, but essential and effective. Failing to start a day well will make you feel like you’re already behind before you even get started.
Not only do studies show that people who get up by 5:30 each morning are generally more successful, they are more productive as well. (I understand that not every person is a morning person, but take this for what it’s worth.)
I absolutely love my morning routine. From wakeup at 5:30 until heading to the office at 8:30, I’m able to daily prioritize the following:
- Making breakfast for my wife and myself
- Spending personal time with God
- Exercising/working out
- Doing a Bible Study with my teen boys, or personal daily reading & writing (depending on the day)
By starting early, I’m able to begin my day giving attention to the success of my physical, mental, and spiritual success. And most of it happens before the rest of the family is even up and about. Your routine doesn’t have to look like mine, but find what works for you, and make it happen.
Change the way you think: Everyone has time for the things that matter most to them. So instead of saying, “I don’t have time” start saying “It’s not about having time, it’s about making time.” Why? Because we all make time for the things that really matter to us.
2. Get organized.
There’s more time in a day than I realize when I actually have a plan, a system, and accountability.
I recently started doing an hourly time schedule for my day. Similar to a zero-based budget where you give every dollar a name, I use the same concept with my time.
By delegating tasks to specific time slots, I’ve found myself more productive and driven throughout each day. As a result, I actually accomplish far more by using this tool.
If you’re sloppy with your money, you’re going to wonder where it all went. The same is true with time. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. But… when you budget your time, your awareness of how you’re using it increases as well. It’s a win-win.
Whatever getting organized with your time needs to look like for you, it’s time to make it happen.
Change the way you think: Rather than saying to yourself, “There’s just not enough time in the day” start saying to yourself, “God has given me everything I need to do everything that matters.” We all have enough time, we usually just need to better organize the time that we have.
3. Say yes to what’s best.
There will always be more things competing for your time than you’ll have time for. Only a few of those things will actually matter 10 or 20 years from now. Don’t forget which things are which.
I’ve personally never had a hard time saying yes to work/ministry. However, in my current season of life, two things that I’m currently striving to give priority of my time to are my family and my health (mental, physical, and spiritual). This sometimes means saying no to other good, but lesser, things.
We sometimes mistakenly think that our busyness is a virtue, when in reality, slowing down to enjoy the one life we’ve been given with the ones we love is something we’ll never regret in the long run.
“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.” -Stephen Swid
Change the way you think: When it comes to giving time to your priorities and you’re tempted to think, “I don’t have time to do that,” instead say to yourself, “I don’t have time not to.”
How could you become a better parent, or a better family, by making some small daily adjustments in how you use your time?
“The way we spend our time defines who we are.” -Jonathan Estrin
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:16
For the next generation,
Andrew
