00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 658 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Frazer rice, author of wealth. Actually, I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having the right relationship with all of your gifts is the key to doing this one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this,
00:00:27 the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. That can be disruptive to your productivity. Sometimes I have to stop right in the middle and reset my mind to do some time with meditation or even go take a 30 minute power nap to reset my body back into the flow, to allow me to buckle down and get the right things done. And then what's interesting is a lot of times when you come back to the work after that kind of mental break,
00:01:05 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 be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you,
00:01:29 The pack In today's episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why that phrase watching your time, maybe isn't as productive as you think. I shared the difference between watching and planning when it comes to time and why we often watch time when we aren't really in the flow. As we talk about stewarding your time, wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long,
00:02:02 it 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, we'll come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. I'm going to watch my time. You know,
00:02:26 I've had people say this over the years, or I'm watching the time it takes. I'm watching how long this takes me. It's an interesting idea. It's a, it's a strange turn of phrase. First off, you know, time is not really something that we can watch. It's not an entity that exists out in the real world in some sort of physical space.
00:02:47 And yet the truth is that that idea of watching our time is something that we all kind of talk about and think about, we're going to watch what we do and watch how we do it and see how long it takes. And then we're going to study that and reflect on it and review and revise and get more efficient and better. And, you know,
00:03:09 that's a good concept. I actually talk about how with time, just like money, we need to examine what we do and reflect on our behaviors and make changes in them to make real change it. Isn't just about monitoring the time, but it's about what you do with the information that that gives you, how does it affect your mindset and your behavior?
00:03:29 But the interesting thing is that concept of watching my time can also be something that disrupts our ability to find the things that we really want to do and get into the flow with them. You know, as an example, what the day I'm recording this, I've been batching a lot of different work and trying to get through a large number of podcast. And it's one of those days where,
00:03:54 because of some poor sleep last night, I've, I've had a harder time focusing than normal. And you have those days, two days where you're distracted days, where your energy is depleted and you have a hard time focusing in, and then you have other days and other activities where when you get started with them, time just disappears. You're no longer focused on how long it's taking you.
00:04:20 You're just clicking on all cylinders. And this idea of watching our time can sometimes get us out of those flow moments. It can disrupt our ability to get into the flow, the position and the way it works. When everything clicks and time just disappears. It's not productive to focus all the time, no pun intended on watching our time. Now it is good.
00:04:49 And it's a great idea to plan what we do. And it's a good idea to track what actually happened and reflect on it and make changes. All of that is solid, but there's a difference between that and watching your time, think about it when you've got something coming up and you begin to focus on the days between now and the event at first,
00:05:15 that can kind of feel cool. It's like checking off the days till Christmas, but it also can make that time drag. It can make it feel like it's never going to get here. Now, some of that has to do with the kind of event and whether or not you're dreading it, or whether or not this is an event that you're anxious for.
00:05:36 And the same thing happens with the work we do every day, the work that we're anxious for, the work that we can't wait to do, it can take forever until it comes up on our to do list while the work that we dread, it's all too easy to constantly look at that. And just that have that time to closer and closer and almost feel like a disaster waiting to happen,
00:06:01 watching your time. It's about the mindset that you take when you do it. Are you watching your time? Because you're so focused on that, that the task and the work is no longer important that you're not using this to gain information about how you can get more of the stuff that you want to do into your life and less of the stuff that you hate,
00:06:25 or are you using this as sort of a clock where it's basically just the sword of Damocles hanging over your head, ticking down the minutes of your life going away. SI We often watch time whenever we're not doing the work that aligns the best with our passion when we're not getting into the flow, when we're not doing the work that creates those moments where time just disappears.
00:06:53 Then we begin to focus on every minute we begin to grab a hold of it in a way that isn't real and that can be disruptive to your productivity. Sometimes I have to stop right in the middle and reset my mind to do some time with meditation or even go take a 30 minute power nap to reset my body back into the flow, to allow me to buckle down and get the right things done.
00:07:24 And then what's interesting is a lot of times when you come back to the work after that kind of mental break, suddenly clicks and you're right into the flow and time just disappears and you're no longer watching it. I found myself today looking at my watch about every 10 minutes going, has it been an hour yet? Because it felt like this time was just crawling by.
00:07:47 And then I laid down for 10 minutes and closed my eyes and did a meditation and came back to the work at hand and it clicked. And I began to turn it out in the next hour. I did more work than I'd done in the previous three because I allowed myself to stop thinking about it from the point of view of how long is this gonna take.
00:08:09 And I just focused on doing the work, enjoying the work and getting into the flow so that the work would just come and sure enough, it began to fly by. So be careful with how you watch and why you're watching your time. Are you doing this so that you can learn how to get more of what you want in your life? How you can get more efficient,
00:08:32 how you can gain more information about what you do well and what you don't. Are you doing this with a sense of dread waiting for the next moment to pass and just clicking down the hours, waiting and waiting and waiting for the next moment to come. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener,
00:09:04 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 four four, two, two, two time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time,
00:09:42 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.