Episode 803 Overloaded Calendars
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 803 of the inspired stewardship podcast. Hey, I'm Matt ham, author of redefined rich, and I challenge you to live richly by listening to the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader.
[00:00:21] it's productivity instead of busy-ness and you can do it with less guilt. Once you've identified, what's really important to you so that you can focus on those things and really give what you want to get. I literally mean creating a priority list, creating a list of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
[00:00:41] What are the things that are most important? For you to be spending your time on it. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. 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 [00:01:00] for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:01:03] We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you. Can impact the work
[00:01:17] and today's episode about investing in others by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why overloading your calendar is not great and what you can do about it. I talk about the difference between a busy season and just being busy. And I also share why you have to constantly monitor this to really focus on what you want to get done.
[00:01:39] 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 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.
[00:01:57] Just that quick. If you enjoy the [00:02:00] show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. One of the ironies of actually serving other people well, comes from the idea of overloading our own calendar. The truth is we often put everything on the calendar about other people's priorities and other people's work and what they need from us before we put anything that we actually need.
[00:02:31] And then we think that means we're serving them well, and yet we get burned out. We get frustrated, we get tired, we get exhausted because we ended up trying to fit in everything we need around the margins. Now by the same token, if you've got your calendar full of nothing, but what you need, just your own selfish needs and the things that you want to do that often, isn't a lot of fun either and ends up burning us [00:03:00] out and exhausting us and getting tired.
[00:03:02] The truth is we need a little bit of both. But the most common mistake that I see in both of those cases is filling the colander with stuff that just keeps us busy without actually taking the time to figure out what are our actual priorities. What is it that should be going onto our calendar and being blocked off and be there and a commitment to all of the time.
[00:03:32]For instance if your family is important to you, do you block off time for your family? Do you block off time for children's events? Do you block off time for date night with your spouse? If on the other hand, maybe you have a hobby or a sport or something that you really enjoy doing. Do you put that time on your calendar and commit to it so that other things don't fill up that time?
[00:03:57] Do you fill up your time with just [00:04:00] random crisises and various things that just come up and suddenly you run out of the time to do the things that you really need to do, or do you constantly find yourself fitting in things around the margins? And all of those cases, that is a sign that you're really busy, but that you may not be productive.
[00:04:21] You may not be getting the right things done. You're just filling your calendar with more stuff. There's a difference between having a busy season and being busy all of the time. Yeah, the truth is I hear people talk all the time about how busy they are, how they've overloaded their calendar, they've overloaded, their to-do lists.
[00:04:41] They just can't possibly get it all done. And the funny thing is when you say that it's an incredible off to others because the truth is busy all the time is just not, it's not attractive. Instead, if you recognize that you need to be [00:05:00] fully present in the moment, but that you are scheduled for other things and that's okay.
[00:05:06] And you block off the time that you need to do the things that are most important, then all of a sudden it doesn't feel like you're as busy, even though you've got just as much time booked on your calendar and you're spending just as much time doing things. Now again, a busy season is okay. It comes around.
[00:05:23] There are certain times of the year in my business as a coach where I tend to onboard a large number of clients. That's a busy season. But it lasts about three months and then it settles back down to the normal level. I can do that without sacrificing family and friends and self care and other things.
[00:05:45] Yeah. It's busy. Yes. It's crazy. Yes. It gets chaotic. Yes. I work more during those three months than I do the rest of the year, but I also know it's coming it's predictable in a way, [00:06:00] because the truth is. That I began to see that pattern. That's a busy season. It happens sometimes maybe as a parent of young children that tends to be a season of your life where it's pretty crazy.
[00:06:14] And it's pretty busy because there's just a lot that going on during that time. But it doesn't last forever. The difference when we're busy all the time, it goes on for months and months and years. And we never seem to get any better. We're constantly talking about how we wish we could be less busy, how we wish we could put things on our calendar, like our family events and other things that are important to us.
[00:06:44] We're constantly talking about what we would like to have our calendar look like as opposed to making sure that it actually looks that way. And the truth is you have to constantly pay attention to this. You have to really monitor and [00:07:00] focus so that what is actually most important to you. What is actually the things that you most need to put on your calendar first?
[00:07:07] What is your priority list? And then here's the thing. If you're working on something or doing something that was number one on your priority list and something that's number two, or number three, or number four, number five or number 560. Comes in and tries to interrupt it. You can easily say no to it because this is the most important thing right now.
[00:07:31] This is the thing where I need to be fully present. This is one of those things that lets you be with your family and be guilt free. I have a client right now that she's got four year old grandkids and they're around a lot right now. And she's constantly feeling guilty that she's not working on her business as much as she would like to.
[00:07:53] And I'm like, wait a minute. Is your priority to spend some time with your grandkids right now? Yes it is. [00:08:00] And is the business able to be put on the back burner a little bit and you can still get some things done. You're just not going to get everything done and you can still make progress and it still grows.
[00:08:11] And the answer is, yes, that's true. Then why are you letting yourself feel guilty and feel bad for the time you spend? With your grandkids, you're actually doing what you should be doing. That's productivity instead of busy-ness. And you can do it with less guilt. Once you've identified, what's really important to you so that you can focus on those things and really get what you want to get.
[00:08:40] I literally mean creating a priority list, creating a list of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. What are the things that are most important for you to be spending your time on what's the second, most important thing? What's the third. What's the fourth. And then recognize that will [00:09:00] change over time.
[00:09:01] It won't be the same for the entire life. It can change in different seasons. So you have to constantly monitor that and make sure that your calendar reflects your priorities. Thanks for listening.
[00:09:22] thanks so much for listening to the inspired 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 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 [00:10:00] that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time.
[00:10:05] Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.