4 Ideas to Help Us Make Better Use of Our Time
The Way to the Heart of True Productivity
God is the one most interested in you and me using our time well. He isn’t looking down from heaven waiting for us to throw our lives away in order to punish us. On the contrary, he began the good work in us and he will finish it (Phil. 1:6). If we want wisdom to be productive—to live a life that honors him with all we have—we need only ask in faith. This is a prayer that God promises to answer (James 1:5–7). Of course, asking for wisdom is just the beginning. We need to know the word of God and walk in obedience, trusting that the Lord will make our steps straight as we do so. In the process, how can we start making better use of our time? Here are some ideas:
1. Think about time.
Thinking about the passage of time can be overwhelming. Many of us can’t stand listening to the sound of a clock ticking away the seconds that will never return. But facing reality is the first step toward living with wisdom. The psalmist recognized that being aware of the brevity of life is important for living in a way that pleases the Lord: “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). Visual reminders of this can be helpful. I have an hourglass on my desk that I use for my deep work sessions.1 For me, it demonstrates the importance of making the most of every moment. But it’s not an accusatory reminder. It definitely motivates me to strive to use every minute to the best of my ability, but it also makes me thank God for redeeming even my clumsiest efforts. Time marches on and his plans will be fulfilled. I am privileged to be part of them.
Make the Most of Your Productivity
Ana Ávila
In this user-friendly guide, Ana Ávila teaches 6 principles to help you honor God with all you have and reflect his character through your creativity.
2. Value your time.
If all lives are equally valuable and all lives are lived in time, every minute of your life has exactly the same value as a minute of your neighbor’s life. It doesn’t matter if your neighbor is a top executive or a celebrity who has a personal assistant. It doesn’t matter if your neighbor spends the day taking an elevator up and down a building for work meetings while you’re at home taking care of your kids or running a small business. To use our time well, we must learn to value it.
In his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Donald Whitney wrote that “if people threw away their money as thoughtlessly as they throw away their time, we would think them insane.”2 One of the easiest ways to value your time is to be aware of what you’re spending it on. Take some time midmorning and before bedtime to reflect on what you have done with your hours throughout the day and readjust your strategy if necessary.
3. Learn from the example of others.
Who do you admire? Observe how that person uses their time. The Bible is the perfect place to start because in the Gospels we find the most productive person in history in the flesh. Jesus lived every second for the glory of God and the good of others, thereby challenging all our preconceived ideas about productivity. He did not hurry or stress out but spent much time eating with his friends, playing with children, and praying in the wilderness. Jesus did not accumulate goods and did not mind letting many of his followers go. He did not heal all the sick nor did he travel to all places. Instead, he took on human limits and fulfilled his mission within those limits.
In the Scriptures we also meet Moses, Joshua, David, Esther, Ruth, Mary, Paul, and many, many more. Some were prophets and others rulers; several were recognized and others were rejected; some were educated and others came from very humble families. However, each of them can show us a little of what it’s like to seek to please the Lord in the situation where he has placed us.
If we want wisdom to be productive—to live a life that honors God with all we have—we need only ask in faith.
Another valuable resource is the biographies of people who have had a positive influence on the world. Of course, just because someone is famous doesn’t mean they were productive (and just because someone has gone unnoticed doesn’t mean they weren’t). Yet, the most useful thing about good biographies isn’t that they share curious facts about a person’s life but that they look closely at the trajectory of a person’s life. As we learn more stories of men and women who have transformed their environment, we will realize that productive people come in all shapes and sizes, but they also have similar characteristics, such as humility, a hunger to learn, determination, perseverance, and more.
Finally, we have the example of the people around us, live and in full color. Observe how people who are close to you spend their minutes and initiate friendly conversations about this topic when you have the opportunity. Your desire is to learn, so ask more questions than you make statements. And pay special attention to the elderly. They have experience and much wisdom to offer us, the fruit both of their own victories as well as their failures.
4. Plan with time in mind.
Planning is good and necessary; Scripture warns us about the right way to do it: “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established” (Prov. 16:1–3). Thus, we plan and at the same time we depend on God. Recognizing that God establishes our paths does not mean that we can sit back and wait for things to happen; that would be to ignore the clear commands of Scripture to work hard. Putting our works in the hands of the Lord means that we make an effort and surrender all our efforts to him. Ultimately, we want the will of him who is infinitely wise to be done. If he allows plans to change, we do not lose heart or become bitter because we know that this too will work for our good (Rom. 8:28). But if we don’t plan in the first place, we end up wasting the resources that the Lord has given us to manage. As we learn from the parable of the talents, hiding on earth what God has given us isn’t an option. We have to go and do business with what he has entrusted to us.
Yet, making plans isn’t enough; to be productive you have to make good plans. Many of us like to make lists to organize our to-dos and feel a little more prepared to face the day with diligence when we do. The problem is that we tend to forget that every task we perform takes time. We say, “I’ll do this tomorrow,” but we don’t think through all the details; we end up juggling mile-long to-do lists instead of being realistic and realizing that we only have twenty-four hours in a day and that these hours are enough to do the things we should be doing. Being aware of how much time each of our responsibilities takes is the first step in identifying what is too much in our schedules and starting to say no more often.
When you make plans, make plans with time in mind. Have a clear idea of how much time you will need for each task you want to perform, and start to set limits on what you will do and when you will do it. Planning with time in mind is difficult at first—we tend to be overly optimistic about how much time we will need to complete a task—but with practice it becomes more and more natural. Checking your to-do list against your calendar will help you be more realistic and only commit to the things you can actually do. You may be discouraged when you realize there are many things you will need to give up. It’s common to think big and imagine that we can do a lot of things on any given day. And if we don’t remember that we are humans and not robots, our plans will fall apart. There’s time for every matter.
Notes:
- According to Cal Newport, deep work is “the act of focusing without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.” Cal Newport, “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World,” November 20, 2015, https://calnewport.com/.
- Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2014), 167.
This article is adapted from Make the Most of Your Productivity: A Guide to Honoring God with Your Time by Ana Ávila.
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