00:00:00 This is another special rebroadcast episode of Episode three, where we talked about using a time tracker to find the time that you need to really do self reflection way inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person that God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, talent and treasures for your true vocation inspired stewardship podcast. You will learn to invest in herself and in others to develop a positive influence so that you can impact the world in today's episode will be talking some about time.
00:00:55 Join me as I talk about. We just do the things that we have to do. But we don't really think about the things that we should be doing. You get to the end of the day and you're exhausted, but when you think back about what you did, it feels like you did nothing on yet you were busy all day. Thes episodes will normally be released on a Wednesday and be focused on time productivity, goal setting, time management and those sorts of things. You think about the type of time that we were talking about in the interview with Matt Ham and yesterday's podcast on spiritual foundations.
00:01:39 It's clear that you've gotta have time set aside for self reflection. You have to have blocks of time or areas of time during the day during the week during the month during the year when you can reflect on things you can pray can meditate, you can train, you can visualize the future, and you can listen to those inner voices. The good ones, not the negative ones that begin to direct you towards your calling, begin to direct you towards those things that you are meant to do and you are designed to do by God.
00:02:20 If you're like most people, the minute I started saying, you gotta have some time in your day or time in your weak or time in your month or year to do self reflection, you immediately had voices going. No way. I I simply don't have time for that. I'm I'm too busy. I've got too much on my calendar already. I've got too much to do. I simply can't find an open time. I can't find five minutes much less 15 toe to reflect to think toe, listen to dream toe,
00:02:50 to meditate, to pray Like most people, you probably kind of stumble out of bed in the morning and stumbled back into bed at night and seldom know what even happened in between. You definitely didn't have a plan before you started for what should have happened in between. Often we spend our days just reacting, moving from one thing to the next, answering email, responding to the things that are put upon us from the outside, doing the things that need to get done. Sure, but not really. The priority is not really the important stuff,
00:03:29 not spending time with our family, not working on the really deep work in the important work that's been put on our hearts are calling. Instead, we simply react, weren't were living, but we're not prioritizing were living. But we're not really doing. We don't have time for creation. We don't have time for reflection. Instead, our time is filled with the mundane but not the mundane that builds excellence, the mundane that saps our will, our energy and saps out of us the core that we are really meant to be.
00:04:10 And so we just go through life. I don't think you've ever met anyone who looks back on a life lived and says, Well, I wish I would have spent more time answering email. I mean, that was the really important thing for me. That's what moved the needle for me or I really wish I would have continued to work 12 hour days and and having all of this time that I spent at work, you know, that's what really grew by relationships with my family, and that was an important thing to me.
00:04:42 Instead, we just go through life. We just do the things that we have to do. But we don't really think about the things that we should be doing. You get to the end of the day and you're exhausted, but when you think back about what you did,
00:05:00 it feels like you did nothing. And yet you are busy all day. But there's a real big difference between being busy and being productive.
00:05:12 You could be busy by simply doing all the things that are on your to do list by answering all your e mails,
00:05:18 getting to embark zero by just doing the things that are handed to you from your boss or your spouse or given to you by yourself on your to do list.
00:05:30 But if you simply go through life being busy, you're not really gonna move the needle to do the things that are important to you.
00:05:40 The things that you're called to do, you've got a message that should be getting out into the world.
00:05:45 You've got something that you're meant to do, something that you're meant to create, something that you're meant to add value to.
00:05:52 Maybe it's your family. Maybe it's something that you're called to do in work. Maybe it's a painting that you're supposed to be painting or a book that you're supposed to be writing.
00:06:02 There's something on your heart, and every time I talk about this, it makes you a little bit uncomfortable because you know that it's there and you know that you're not doing it and doing it doing the hard work.
00:06:16 That's what you have to do. But before you can start doing the work, you have to know whatthe work is supposed to be,
00:06:25 and you have to create time to do it. You start with what you're supposed to do, why you're supposed to do it,
00:06:37 create time for it. The reason you need the Why in the middle is because if you're why isn't big enough,
00:06:43 you'll never create the time. So for me, my why about getting this podcast out is because I know that I've got a message to speak into the lives of men and women about living they're calling.
00:06:58 And I know that that message is important. That message has made a difference in my life, and I know it could make a difference in yours.
00:07:06 And so I'm called to put this out there, and I know I'm going to get haters. I know I'm going to get people that don't like what I'm doing,
00:07:12 but hopefully my Why about providing for my family through this message? My Why about living out what I feel God has put on my heart to do The message that I have inside of me,
00:07:25 that why of delivering it is bigger than that Negativity, Not just the negativity from the world outside by the negativity from the voices inside that's busy when you just go through life,
00:07:38 getting everything done productive, productive is when you get the right things done. So when I look at my calendar and I have blocks of time set aside for recording.
00:07:50 This podcast would have blocks of time set aside for working with clients when I have blocks of time set off side for being with my family when I have blocks of time set aside for self development,
00:08:02 when I have blocks of time set aside for a morning routine for an evening routine for doing things over time that build upon each other and build my message,
00:08:16 that is what a productive day would look like. Guess what? A lot of times, that's not what my day looked like.
00:08:25 It's still today, not always what my day looks like. Sometimes I get derailed. Sometimes stuff comes at me and I end up just reacting.
00:08:35 I'm not perfect in this. Nobody is. The truth is, it's kind of like the quote from Dr Chambliss,
00:08:44 I believe, is how you pronounce his name. He he did a study of professional swimmers, and there's a quote from that study that I love.
00:08:51 It says excellence is mundane. Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon,
00:09:05 which have been carefully drilled in the habits and are then fitted together in a synthesized hole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions on Lee.
00:09:16 The fact that they're done consistently and correctly and all together produce excellence. Think about that. He's saying that it's not being born with it.
00:09:32 It's not being special. Instead, it's about doing those things over and over and over and over and over and building upon them and building upon them and stacking those things higher and higher and higher until eventually excellence emerges.
00:10:00 It's about doing the hard work, the routine work. It's not fun to do a budget. It's not fun to plan out your day.
00:10:09 It's not fun to recognize that you can't do everything you can't have everything. You can't be everywhere that's hard doing the hard work,
00:10:22 having a regular routine, getting up at the same time, going toe bed at the same time, turning off the TV for me,
00:10:30 shutting off the video games on the computer, those air huge distraction for me. I've got to put my phone out of arm's reach when I'm trying to be productive during the day because if it's there,
00:10:41 it'll buzzer, it'll bang or a game will go off or somebody will send me a message or I'll get une mail.
00:10:47 Something will happen and I'll draw my attention and it takes away from my productivity. You develop excellence through thousands of small task,
00:10:57 and you can develop failure the same way thousands of small tasks that draw you away from what you're supposed to be doing.
00:11:08 See, a lot of times I try to have an abundance mindset. I try to think about things is there's more than enough out there.
00:11:16 There's more than enough money. There's more than enough love. There's more than enough caring. There's more than enough jobs.
00:11:22 There's more than enough. There's more than enough. There's more than enough, and that's true. But time isn't like that.
00:11:29 Time is scarce. Time is precious. You want a A NewsBreak. There's 24 hours in the day.
00:11:39 You have 100 and 68 hours a week. That's it. You've got that. Michael Phelps says that Tiger Woods has that.
00:11:46 Who else? Everybody. Richard Branson. Anyone that you admire for doing beyond belief. Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V,
00:11:56 all of these people out there that you look at you come on I can't Tim Ferriss Hama. How did they get all that done?
00:12:02 I mean, they're so incredible. Look at that. There are a 1,000,000 or Pat Flynn, one of my mentors from afar who I greatly admire.
00:12:11 He's transparent, He's caring, he's kind. He gets a Don Don and how does he do it?
00:12:18 He must have a time machine and Pat's case. He'd love to have a time machine because he loves back to the future.
00:12:24 But you know he doesn't. He doesn't have a time machine. He's got 168 hours in the week,
00:12:31 the same way that you do a great book to read. It touched me I rented a few years ago,
00:12:37 and and I want to pull it back out and read it again, because I know it'll hit me even harder Now is called 20,000 Days and Counting by Robert D.
00:12:45 Smith. I'll have a link to it in the show notes. It's it's a great resource about the mindset around time about recognizing the title comes from this concept of You've only got so many days on the earth.
00:13:01 You've only got so many days and you can't even know how many you've got left. It could go away at any moment.
00:13:10 This could be your last week on Earth, and you really want to spend it just being busy. Do you really want to spend it just getting by going through the day,
00:13:26 moment by moment, not spending time with the people and the things that are most important to you. So how do you really find time and create space for self reflection?
00:13:42 You can't create time. You have to find it, and then you have to block it and make something happen.
00:13:50 In that time, you've got to actually plan and then execute on that plan. So you know, Step one before you start sitting down and planning and say,
00:14:04 I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and I'll fit this in and off it. This in because odds are good.
00:14:10 Your time is already pretty booked. Your time already has a lot of stuff on it. Weaken. Simply create a spreadsheet or take a sheet of paper and a notebook.
00:14:20 I like doing it on a computer because I'm at a computer all day, but if you're not, you could do this with a pen and paper.
00:14:26 It doesn't take anything fancy and begin to track in about 30 minute intervals. What you do all day.
00:14:34 What are you really spending your time doing now? I suggest cause you'll forget that you said it a silent alarm on your watch or on your phone That goes off every 30 minutes.
00:14:47 And that reminds you. Hey, take, you know, two minutes and write down what you did the last half hour.
00:14:52 And, you know, I have to write a lot of detail. You know, I have to go into a lot of detail.
00:14:56 Why I went to this group on Facebook, and then I I went to Twitter and I read seven twirly eats.
00:15:01 And then I looked at my e mail and and I answered to e mails and you know, then I got distracted by Facebook again and went back to faith.
00:15:08 No, just put Facebook email. Twitter. That's what you did. Or better yet, social media and email track in big chunks of 30 minutes.
00:15:21 What are you doing during the day? If you want a spreadsheet that I've designed for, this one will be coming out pretty soon.
00:15:31 I'm gonna be launching a stewardship tips Siri's. We'll have tips for time, talent and treasures, and you can pick one or all three.
00:15:40 At least if it gets all working right, that's what you'll be able to do. And if you're interested in getting on that list,
00:15:46 you can. You can either sign up over it inspired stewardship dot com or you can text Steward ship 244222 if you're in the U.
00:15:56 S and you'll get signed up. And now I'm gonna be honest if you're listening to this riel time.
00:16:03 If you're listening to this the second week of January in 28 team, you're not going to get an email back right away that has a spreadsheet on it because I'm still building it.
00:16:13 I'm designing the email. Siri's as we go. This is one of those things where I'm actually kind of living out something that I tell others to do,
00:16:24 which is launch before you're really ready. Launch before you got everything. Perfect launch before you're 100% comfortable and this is an example of me living that out.
00:16:35 Be patient. I promise I will be sending you something to get started. Eventually I'll probably had. This is just an upgrade that you can download their on the show notes page,
00:16:45 but I'm not gonna have it on day one. It will show up a little later, but I promise you'll get it if you want to go ahead and sign up.
00:16:54 So set that silent alarm every 30 minutes. Boom, every 30 minutes. Boom every 30 minutes. What did I do?
00:17:00 What did I do? What did I do? I watch TV or what? Few tube answered e mails,
00:17:05 worked on a project at work, Spent some time with my wife or my son. Then after you've done that for about a week,
00:17:20 five days, seven days, and I suggest doing it over the weekend to Don't just do this during the work day.
00:17:27 Do this over the weekend, do it for seven days, then review that spreadsheet. Go back and look at it.
00:17:34 Categorized the time. Look at it, how you're spending your time. Figure out what you're doing too much off what you're doing too little of.
00:17:46 Are you watching TV too much? Are you spending too much on on Facebook? Are you spending time with your family.
00:17:56 Do you have time for reflection built into it? Do you have a set morning and evening routine that you execute?
00:18:04 How about your work time? Were you really working during work? Do you have eight hours set aside for work?
00:18:10 But in reality, you spend three of them on Facebook and other things. Studies show that most workers spend about 1/3 of their time disengaged during the workday,
00:18:24 not actually doing work. So is that true for you? Really? Dig in and be honest with yourself.
00:18:33 Nobody else has to see this really dig in and be honest with yourself. And then you can begin making a plan to change the pattern.
00:18:44 That's something that will be talking about later in this podcast. We'll be talking about ways that you can change the pattern and that you can plan for ongoing weeks.
00:18:54 And you can begin tow more your current reality into the reality you'd like it to be, because odds are really good when you dig in to that calendar and you when you dig into how you're really spending your time,
00:19:13 if having this time for self reflection. If having this time were during the day. And so for me,
00:19:20 it's in the morning because that's kind of a quiet time. And I meditate. I pray and I spend some time thinking about what am I called to do?
00:19:31 Who am I? What do I want my life to look like? Visualizing the future. And then I began to plan my day.
00:19:40 Ah, usually plan, actually for a whole week, but then I just that plan as the day comes and figure out how I'm gonna execute that today to go where I want to go and to go where I'm called to go.
00:19:54 This is how you can create margin or white space so that you can dream dreams again. You can visualize the future,
00:20:02 and you can listen to and find you're calling, and you can live it out. So stay tuned and you'll hear more about this in the weeks to come.
00:20:13 But this is where I want to wrap it up for today. Thanks so much for joining us and listening to the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:20:29 As a subscriber, we challenge you to be more than just a passive lister. But act on what you've heard and find a way toe live you're calling.
00:20:38 We'd love it if you could subscribe to the podcast and get the latest episodes over in iTunes. And if you really like the podcast,
00:20:45 please feel free to live. Leave us a review and rating on iTunes. You didn't enjoy it. Email me feedback at Scott and inspired stewardship dot com.
00:20:55 Join us for community and conversations there. It inspired stewardship dot com and until next time, remember investor time,
00:21:04 your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence. An Impact on the world.