Episode 778 Spend Time Wisely
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 778 of the inspired sturgeon podcast. I'm Joe Schum from soul patch, hippo success coaching. I want to serve your journey to be the next version of you to be inspired, to become the most authentic. You listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast by my friend, Scott Mader every day can help you keep the focus that you need.
[00:00:34] and begin to create systems and structure around them. Group things together, block things into blocks of time. Control the time on your calendar. What's available for meetings what's available for calls what's available for emails. Schedule those things that you've been putting off and maybe not getting done, but that are really important to actually get done.
[00:00:58] Welcome. Thank [00:01:00] 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.
[00:01:17] Invest in others. And develop your influence so that you can impact the word.
[00:01:30] And today's episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why this year more than ever. You need to focus on spending your time wisely. I share how you can know if you are spending your time wisely. And I share a simple three part framework to help you begin to spend your time more wisely, that you can apply this very week.
[00:01:50] 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, it turns out you can't. All [00:02:00] 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.
[00:02:09] Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. I don't know about anyone else, but I think we can all pretty much agree that 2020 was not probably the most fun year that you've ever had in your life. Even if things worked out okay for you, even if you didn't get ill or suffer a job loss or have other issues or problems or concerns that came up, it probably wasn't what is going to go down in history as your best year ever.
[00:02:47] You may have had a good year, but you probably didn't have a great one. And I think that's why this year 2021, it's so important to focus on spending your time wisely. [00:03:00] Okay, by the way I'll actually give you a little secret. I would say that no matter what happened last year, and I would say that no matter what year it is, because the truth is time is one of our most scarce resources.
[00:03:13] In fact, it is the most scarce resource, even more scarce than money or anything else. We do not have an unlimited amount of time. We are. All given 24 hours in a day, seven days a week. But what we're all given also is the ability to choose how we spend that time. We're given some amount of power to choose what we do with that time.
[00:03:39] And my argument would be that even more than money. Our time is where she, we should focus our attention first on making sure we're doing it wisely because out of spending time wisely comes habits around money. Out of spending time wisely comes habits about monitoring our [00:04:00] energy and paying attention to how our energy flows.
[00:04:03] Think about time right now. You already pay for convenience. Whether it's stopping it at a convenience store or paying for overnight delivery. Any of these things are a way that we change time and give it a monetary value. And the shorter, the time, the more expensive it is, if you're thinking about something like a delivery, that's an.
[00:04:23] Example of why our time has a factor or has a measure here on our money. Think about how you value time and how you spend it. What dollar amount would you put on an hour of your time? When you look at it that way you begin to recognize that sometimes what you're doing with your time today is not necessarily what you want to do with your time forever.
[00:04:51] No time cannot be stored up co time cannot be saved in that sort of sense of putting it in the bank and saving it for later. You [00:05:00] can only spend the time you have right now. And are you spending the time in a way that gives you happiness, that gives you freedom that gives you and builds for the future.
[00:05:12] Are you spending the time today in a way that just really. It's the same today as it will be tomorrow as it will be the next day where you're not really focusing on changing or improving or growing, are you spending the time in a way, if you're a business owner that helps to grow, generate growth, that helps to generate income.
[00:05:37] That also does it in a way where you don't have to hustle around the clock and work 24 seven. If you're an employee, are you figuring out a way to do things more efficiently and to grow it so that you don't have that same 24 seven mentality? See this 24 seven grind. All the time mentality I would argue is a broken measure of time.
[00:05:59] We're [00:06:00] not spending our time wisely. If it requires us to work 24 hours a day in seven days a week. Instead, we should actually transform ourselves so that we can maintain and grow and do what we need to do without having to work eight hours a day, 16 hours a day, 27 hours a day. And yes, I know that last one's impossible, but you get the point.
[00:06:23] That seems to be what we hold up as a badge of honor nowadays. So how do you know if you're spending your time wisely? How do you know. If you're actually able to do what you want to do in the time that you have. The first step for any time you want to know what you're doing is to actually pay attention, to be attentional about measuring what you're doing.
[00:06:47] See the truth is you probably do several hundred tasks each and every day. And you consciously, only think about one or two of them. So keep a detailed log. I talk about doing what I call the 30 [00:07:00] minute or 15 minute miracle exercise, where you sit down and take a piece of paper and put 30 minute increments on it.
[00:07:06] And then have an alarm set on your watch. That silently goes off every 30 minutes and every 30 minutes you take a moment or two and you jot down the big ideas. What did you do in the last half hour? You don't have to keep a detailed moment by morning moment, second by second law, but begin to capture.
[00:07:22] The things that you do, you can use an electronic tool like toggle to do this as well. Especially if you work on the computer all day, but log, what are you doing? How much are you spending on Facebook? How much on Netflix? How much on email, how much on actually calling clients and then begin to apply once you've captured that for a couple of days or a week or a month, sit down with those tasks and begin to identify what are you doing?
[00:07:50] Think about the Eisenhower matrix, this idea of urgent and important. How many of these tasks are urgent? How many are important? How many are both [00:08:00] and how many are not urgent and not important at all? Are there tasks that you can be eliminating from your calendar or the things that you're doing today that you actually need to just get rid of?
[00:08:11] They don't actually need to be, get done. Are there any that need to be automated and turned into something that happens automatically or delegated to others, maybe you can outsource it or hire someone to do it. The truth is until you've identified, which are the tasks that you should be doing, which are the tasks you should be paying attention to, which are the tasks that are really the most important for you to get done.
[00:08:38] You can't spend your time wisely. And then once you've done that focus in on those very few tasks that are probably left. Cause there really won't be as much as you think, and begin to create systems and structure around them, group things together, block things into blocks of [00:09:00] time, control the time on your calendar.
[00:09:02] What's available for meetings. What's available for calls what's available for emails, schedule those things that you've been putting off and maybe not getting done, but that are really important to actually get done. Make sure that you're making some time for your family, for yourself, for health, for wellness, for taking care of yourself for all of those things that are really important, but because they're not urgent, we tend to not pay attention to them.
[00:09:31] No, Psalm 90 verse 12 says teach us to number our days that we may get to the heart of wisdom. And that's the framework that we really have to use. Pay attention to how we use our time, because out of that comes spending our time wisely. Thanks for listening.
[00:09:56] thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship [00:10:00] 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 liked 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.
[00:10:39] Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.