Time Well Spent                                                                                                   January 2006

It's 12:27 a.m. as I type. I've just spent the last hour ironing while watching a recorded episode of Supernanny. This week, Jo showed a mom how to structure the day to allow time for playing with her children. When I look back on my day, I realize that my family would benefit from more structure as well.

It's not that I didn't spend time with my daughters. I was there for them—at a distance as I sat for two hours in a booth working while my Kindergartener played with a friend at an indoor playground. I was also there for her as she painted at the breakfast nook while I typed on the computer.

When Katie got out of school, I was there for her as well as she ate the batter from the chocolate chip muffins I made while I cleaned up the kitchen. I spent my whole day doing things for Katie and Hollie at the expense of spending time with them. My task-oriented focus was at its worst this evening when Bill came home from a three-day business trip at the exact moment I decided to organize the hall closet. Instead of welcoming him home, I stuck with my project and even insisted on help from the girls, asking them to try on last year’s shoes to see which ones still fit.

What was I thinking? I thought to myself, feeling a lot like Martha in chapter 10 of the Gospel of Luke. She wanted her sister Mary to get off her duff and help in the kitchen as much as I wanted the girls to help me with the hall closet.

I don’t want to serve my family at the expense of sitting down with them. Maybe you are feeling the same spiritual nudge to set aside your busyness for the business of being with your family. Our To Do list will always be with us but family members may not. John Maxwell said it best when he warned that “the person who forgets the ultimate is a slave to the immediate.”(1)

To learn more about what your ultimate goals should be, follow the advice from time management expert and author Dru Scott Decker and make two columns on a sheet of paper. Label the first column, “What I think God Wants More of in My Life.” Label the second column, “What God Wants Less Of.”(2)

Exercises like this will make a difference in how we spend our day—the difference between time well spent and being absent from the moments that matter most.

A Quote to Grow On

“Just as you can fit only so much into a closet or drawer, you can fit only so much into your waking hours.”

-Julie Morgenstern, Time Management from the Inside Out

1) John C. Maxwell, Thinking For A Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life And Work, (New York: Time Warner Book Group, 2003), p. 69.

2) Dru Scott Decker , Finding More Time In Your Life: With Wisdom from the Bible and tools that fit your personality. (Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2001), p. 125.