“If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.” -Ben Franklin. This motto could easily apply to any measure of planning from financial and farming to homemaking and time-management. Not surprisingly the thing most homemakers struggle with is “How do I juggle it all?” Last week we set the stage for peaceful homemaking by addressing our perspectives about our roles as homemakers and the fact that "systems make poor saviors." This week we'll be focusing specifically on time management, this is the factor that will make or break a home management system. It doesn’t matter how thorough your checklist is or how perfectly customized the routines, if you’re still wasting large amounts of time it’s going to continue to feel overwhelming.
Let’s discuss 3 universal truths about time to get our perspectives right before we move on to some practical application.
Everyone has the same number of hours in a single day. If you don’t make a plan for your time, everyone else will.
God has given you the amount of time you need to do the things he has called you to do.
Time is our most precious asset.
Everyone has the same number of hours in a single day, the difference lies in what we do with them. We are all working with the same number of hours in our day. The inventor, engineer, farmer and mother have the same number of hours in our day. If you don’t make a plan for your time, everyone else will. Hello, instagram rabbit hole.. What we accomplish largely depends on how we manage those hours and what our roles and priorities are. This is where it’s important to “know thyself”. What are your roles/responsibilities and season? Line up 3 mothers with the same number of children and what they get done will vary dramatically based on their families needs, abilities, priorities and the age of their children. So we need to remember it’s not about who does the most tasks, it’s about what has the most impact for their situation and family. Again, it’s not about doing the most in regard to quantity of tasks, it’s about stewarding your time well. Productivity driven by pride or ego isn't the same as the faithful stewardship that makes for a peaceful home. One of my biggest time management failures is when I forget that my time is not my own. When I forget to prayerfully consider priorities and opportunities and talk with my husband, I've forgotten that my time is not my own to use however I please. We need to remember that our time is a gift from God, and each hour can be used to glorify him.
Everyone has the same number of hours in a single day, the difference lies in what we do with them.
How to make the most of the time you have: (I recommend a sheet of paper for this! You should keep this in the back of your binder to reference periodically) First, assess your long term goals. Consider the goals in 6 major areas of life: spiritual, financial, marriage, parenting, ministry/work, and personal. I’m talking about picturing what you want to look back and see when you’re wrinkled and gray. With that in mind set your goals. Next, take a look at where you are currently. Assessing your current season is critical because good things executed at the wrong time are generally bad ideas. It’s a recipe for frustration, burnout and mangled priorities. Prudence recognizes that there is a season for everything. When we have the long term in view with realistic expectations given our current season, we can begin to structure our daily lives in a way that aligns with our priorities. Reverse engineer your goals by looking at the big picture goal and seeing how it can be broken up in to smaller milestones, and even further into weekly or daily tasks.
We need to remember that our time is a gift from God, and each hour can be used to glorify him.
Why set big goals first? People need to eat and laundry will get washed. Whether you’re overwhelmed by these tasks is irrelevant because the point is: these tasks will demand your attention. Oftentimes, our long term goals which require small daily efforts will get neglected and we'll be stuck surviving rather than thriving. Being intentional with our time is a lot like setting a budget. Every dollar needs a job, so you need to know how much you’re working with and what your long term goals are to budget accordingly. Here we’re treating our time like money and our long term goals are part of the paycheck. Also like a budget, you need to learn to discern the difference between wants and needs or in this case “urgent” vs. important. (i.e. a phone notification or email vs. meal prep.)
God has given you the amount of time you need to do the things he has called you to do. Don't get it twisted, I'm not saying it will always be easy or even that you'll always be able to check everything off of your list. Sometimes it’ll be someone else doing things you’ve carefully delegated. This isn't a matter of mustering up enough of our own strength and determination to muscle through a day. It's about cultivating a spirit of surrender as we go about our days and committing to steward our time faithfully, tending to our God-given priorities over our own desires and agendas. That means when the kids are bickering we take the time to train and discipline, remembering that this is our most important task rather than an interruption from the current task. I've had too many instances of being laser focused on tasks and lists to the point that I was snapping at my husband and children for "interrupting" me because I lost sight of the fact that in light of eternity, their needs outweigh my desire to fold and put away the laundry within a set window of time. (I’m not saying we should be at the mercy of every beck and call- but we shouldn’t be so hyper-focused that we become cold, venemous or short-tempered because someone genuinely needed our time and attention.) When we can remember that our husbands and children are blessings and our primary ministry we can meet "interruptions" with a spirit of grace, intention and peace.
Time is our most precious asset. How we spend the small and seemingly insignificant hours of our lives makes up the overall quality of life. While the vacations and holidays are much anticipated and make for sweet memories, what we do in the quiet hours of our days every other day of the year makes up the majority of the quality of our lives. "yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." James 4:14 ESV I'd argue that time is our most precious asset because its the one thing that we all receive in a finite amount of- and we cannot do anything to will or make a moment more of it, much unlike money. If I remember this truth it makes my wasted time feel much more like ignorance than a simple matter of personal choice. Ultimately, how we spend our time is incredibly valuable; our days are priceless. This is just as true for our Mondays as it is our Sundays.
Bearing all of these things in mind, lets get to the application and build out a framework for our daily schedule!
Action Steps:
-On one sheet of paper write out each of the 6 goal categories and pick a few long term goals for each. Sit down and talk these over with your spouse and take time this week to pray over each of these areas.
-On the other side of the sheet reverse engineer some of these goals. Break them up into monthly, weekly and/or daily action steps. (Also, make sure they're appropriate for your current season, some things need to wait when you're adjusting to babies and motherhood, that good and normal. Write them down for safe keeping.)
-On another sheet of paper map out your daily schedule! Everyone has 24 hours in a day. Write what time you wake up and the time you go to bed, then fill in your non-negotiables with there approx. average time. (things like meal times, school, etc.) The remaining hours of the day that you're not sleeping are available for plugging in your other priorities! If you need help with building some habits, check out this post for ideas.
When you plan this way, you plan around your priorities rather than trying to cram them into a full day.
*If you find that you have more things than time for, this would be a good time to prayerfully reconsider, talk them over with your spouse and if they should stay consider looping them into your schedule periodically rather than making it a daily occurrence.
Plenty of books have been written on the topic of time management and squeezing it into a single post was difficult because there is so much more I'd love to talk about! (Maybe in the next series?)
So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.- Psalm 90:12
Let me know if you had any “aha!“ moments or found something you’re eager to implement!
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