Episode 1238: Rage Against Reality

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,238 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:06] Brad Miller: Hello my friend. This is Dr. Brad Miller from the Pathway to Promise Podcast. If you'd like to stay inspired to stay on your pathway to promise you can't do better than listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:28] Scott Maderer: See this is about not giving up on reality. This is not about saying this is the way it is and it's always gonna be this way. There's nothing I can do about it. Instead, it's about looking for those things that you have control over and controlling. But not focusing on the things that you don't have control over.

[00:00:51] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to [00:01:00] be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others.

[00:01:11] And develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:17] in today's episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time. I talk with you about when we set up our week and how we often set it up to fail. I talk about why we do this even when we know we. And I also share two ways we need to recognize and what we can do to adjust how we plan our. As we talk about Steward in your time, wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long?

[00:01:45] Turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon, and a small commission will come back to support the show. Just that quick, if you enjoy the show, when you're ready [00:02:00] to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/. All too often when I'm working with folks on getting more productive, getting more things done, getting the right things done, what ends up happening is as we go into it and we look at how they've been using their time, what they've been doing up till now, we discover ways that they're actually sabotaging, they're weak, they're actually setting themselves up to fail before.

[00:02:34] They've even started one thing that I see people do is they'll create a to-do list of all the things they wanna get done tomorrow, and it'll have 30, 40, 50, maybe even 80 items on it. And then I ask them to look at their calendar and see how much time they have, like in meetings or already scheduled to do things and half of their day is already taken up and [00:03:00] scheduled by meetings and.

[00:03:02] The reality is, unless those 80 items are all really small, there's no way people are going to be able to get all of those things done because it's just not gonna fit. There's not enough hours in the day. A another thing that I see happen is everyone assumes that their day is going to run perfectly.

[00:03:25] Everything is going to happen the way it's supposed to. There won't be any unexpected or unplanned events that come up during the day, and let's be real, when's the last time that actually happened to you? Or maybe there's a rhythm to their week or to their month or to their day that they really have no control over.

[00:03:50] Maybe their boss requires a certain check in at a certain time, or maybe there's a cycle of their work where every three. They have this real intense [00:04:00] work period, and then it slacks off again and goes back to normal. Maybe there's a pattern to things that are going on, and yet, instead of recognizing that pattern and designing their work around it, they just rage against it.

[00:04:15] They just feel frustrated every time they get to that busy period because they haven't slacked off on the other things that they want to. Now the truth is, even when we start to recognize this sort of pattern, we often don't adjust our own behavior in response to it. We want the universe, we want the time, we want other people to change, but we don't want to make the changes that we need to make ourselves.

[00:04:46] We don't wanna adjust things ourselves. We just want everything else to change so that it suddenly starts to. We rage against reality. We allow ourselves to be frustrated, to be tired, to be [00:05:00] exhausted, to be angry. When the reality is that simply the way it's going to be, you can allow it to bother you, or you can make adjustments so that you can operate around it.

[00:05:14] So let's talk about a couple of practical tips. Let's talk about a couple of real world examples. One thing that you can. Is if you have, for instance, that cycle where every few weeks there's an intense period, or every few weeks there's something that's going on that you can't control, or that could be every day or every week as well.

[00:05:35] Go ahead and put that time into your plan. And as you put time into your plan, whether that's meetings, whether that's calendar events, whether that's things that you have no control over, adjust your to-do list to reflect. Reduce items on your to-do list, by the way, that means you're gonna have to make some tough choices.

[00:05:56] You're gonna have to say no to some things that normally would be on your list, [00:06:00] but it's better to proactively decide what am I gonna say yes to? What am I gonna say no to than it is to reactively? Have it just happen to you. See, this is. Intentionality. This is about making decisions. This is about saying yes to the things that are most important so that you can say no to the other things deliberately, and you can balance your week in a more intentional way.

[00:06:27] We need to recognize that there's going to be unplanned events almost every single day. You have a certain amount of just stuff that comes. Why not put in some U P W unplanned work time? Just schedule some buffer time into your plan. Recognize that you're gonna have 30, 60, maybe even 90 minutes of time that's just gonna be sucked up by the stuff that happens.

[00:06:53] That just happens. The computer doesn't boot up correctly. Maybe something else doesn't work. Maybe you're waiting for [00:07:00] some material that you need to wait on. Maybe it's an email that you're waiting on. Whatever it is, there's something that you have no control over that's gonna happen just because it's gonna happen.

[00:07:12] And when it does, it's gonna take up a certain amount of time. So why not put in some buffer time, put in some time on your day that you know is just there to soak up those unplanned event. . See, this is about not giving up on reality. This is not about saying this is the way it is and it's always gonna be this way.

[00:07:35] There's nothing I can do about it. Instead, it's about looking for those things that you have control over and controlling those, but not focusing on the things that you don't have control over because all that does is frustrates. And keep you from doing what you really need to do. Thanks for listening.

[00:07:56] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired [00:08:00] Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the Stewardship of Time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of Time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting 4 4 2 2 time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time.

[00:08:39] Until next time, invest your. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.