Too Many Choices and Not Enough Time
Today’s world is full of choices that increase with each new day.
Family Vacations? No longer simple camping trips or a day at the beach, families now choose adventures on safari or a packed-schedule week on a cruise at sea.
Education? The neighborhood school can be exchanged for homeschool, magnet school, private, or talent specific.
Profession? Career choices now list hundreds of opportunities getting paid to do things we’ve never even heard of,
Entertainment? and what was once 3 selections on our family television in our living rooms, has grown to more stations and more ways to watch them than we can begin to count.
With all of these choices fighting for our attention, we’re now looking for better ways to manage our time so that, somehow, we can find time to do them all.
Tons of books and magazine articles have now been written–promising us Time Management strategies and secrets to help unclutter our lives and free us from this round the clock prison we’ve created. Though these resources are helpful and encourage our productivity, our problem begins way before these strategies can ever make a difference.
The problem isn’t how to better manage my time, but why have I wasted it in the first place?
Why am I wasting my time?
Our faced paced lives have become a tangled knot of so many choices until our most important tasks are jumbled and hidden among them.
Think about it. In the past week, how much time have we wasted:
watching TV?
deciding what to wear?
arguing with our kids or spouse?
scrolling through our Facebook page?
surfing through other social networks?
dreaming about what we WANT to be doing?
or entangled in someone else’s drama? (you know what I’m talking about)
We all do it–over and over. Until, without thinking, we realize our kids are grown, our spouse is distant, and our relationship with God is in serious need of repair.
Effective Time Management Starts Right Now!
Let’s toss our time wasters and discover better ways to invest our lives in the areas where it counts.
1. [Tweet “In order to accomplish our goals, we first must make them.”]
The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. Proverbs 21:5
2. [Tweet “In order to choose our priorities, we must limit our choices.”]
How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver. Proverbs 16:16
3. [Tweet “To produce good works, we must invest our lives rather than waste our time. “]
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
What about you?
Are you looking for ways to better manage your time? Share your comments.
I’m trying to develop a weekly checklist for myself to use. Everything I have to do weekly so I can stay on track.
Great idea, Alyssa! A couple of months ago, I also started using a timer along with my checklist. That way, I keep to what I’m supposed to be working on without wandering off into social media land 🙂
I love the timer idea, Mitzi. I have a schedule but too often I get involved and lose track of time. I’m buying a cute timer especially for my desk. My challenge, though, is to leave room in my schedule for God to surprise me.
good point, Sherry
we can get way too schedule confined– let God surprise us!