Monday, October 11, 2010

Time Management Results

Months ago I read an article from Matt at Becoming Last. The article suggested that readers take a time inventory of their lives to determine how much time they spent on work, sleep, preparing and eating book, etc. The purpose of the exercise was to evaluate if the way we spend our time matches what we claim to value.

For an entire week I wrote down everything I spent my time on. I discovered that I spent much of my free time with friends and doing bible studies. This matched two of the four priorities of my life (read about those here). I spent much more time on those two things than I did the top two things on my list (loving and serving my family, and loving and serving others). I realized my free time was being spent on the four areas of my life that were important, just not in the order I desired! I came to two conclusions from this exercise.

Schedule Change
We had a few conversations about our desire to love and serve other people. We were able to do this on the rare occasion a girl from church needed someone to go to an appointment with her because her mother lived out of town, or helping a family move who didn’t own a car. But we realized we needed to be much more intentional in this area.

We also realized we needed to drop a few commitments to spend time working on our marriage. We started limiting our time on church related activities to twice a week instead of three or four. We started picking up and doing housework for 5-10 minutes at breakfast and lunch so we had time in the evening together. I stopped spending as much time online, and as you have probably noticed, on this blog.

Continued Evaluation
In a short time, this exercise opened my eyes. I realized that I don’t always spend my time in a way that matches what I say I value. I get so busy with life and the things that I have scheduled that I neglect the things that are the most important to me! This was very helpful to Mr. DFx40 and I, and we plan on doing this again.

Conclusion
It was a looong 6 months away from this blog, but it was well worth it. Mr. DFx40 is graduated and finally starting to settle in at his new job. My job has had a major schedule change. And we have added another member to our household. But we can catch up about life a little later!

What about you…what are the priorities in your life? Do you consistently spend your time in a way that reflects that?

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Money Proverbs - A Prudent Son

Each Sunday I am going to take a verse or passage from the book of Proverbs and share it with you. Some weeks it will be one verse, some weeks it will be a passage to help put the highlighted verse in context, but every week it will be relevant.

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Many proverbs have negative and positive statements. Today’s is not different.

4 A slack hand causes poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
5 He who gathers in summer is a prudent son,
but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.

Proverbs 10:4-5

Negative.  We’ve all heard the story of the grasshopper and the ant. We’ve also all heard stories of grasshoppers that came into money without earning it themselves. Unfortunately, the proverb below holds true even in those situations. Many people who inherit money or win the lottery end up in worse shape that they started out in because they didn’t change their ways.

Positive.  This verse brought to my mind a worker with variable income. These people know that they must save during months of plenty (gather in summer) to survive the months of want. They will be rewarded with peace of mind, a cared for family, and a wise reputation.

What about you…how would you apply this to our world today? How have you applied this to you life already?