Weekend Time War

It is the weekend... finally Friday!

Weekends come with the joy of being off work and the curse of time. If you are like us some weekends are so busy that you wonder if you're going to have time to sleep and then other weekends your digging for things to do.

Budgeting time is something that I haven't always been good at, it is a learning curve for me.  I recently read a book that made stop and think about how little time I was actually spending on things that were important and looking at the excuses we all have for not budgeting our time well. We only have 24 hours in a day to spend. Each day will be different because we all have different things on each day of the week. But if you take out a weekly calendar what would it look like? Would your time be spent well? If God took your calendar for a week would it look the same as what you have down? I had to answer no to those questions. It was time for a calendar makeover. Lent is a great time to do this. It gives us 40 days to look at how we are spending our time and to change how we are budgeting.

When I redid my budget the first things I added to my calendar was my time with God. God should always first. This means, my quiet times and prayer time is to be done first and not with the leftover energy of the day.

Then comes family, we each week find times to spend together even if it is just sitting and watching something on Netflix or going to the store. Intentionally finding time to just be with each other and not allowing other things to interfere with that.

Then comes everything else... jobs, hobbies and everything in between.  For me, my time is flexible and that can be a blessing and a curse. It comes down to making sure I am saying yes to what needs to be done, maybe to things that are extra and no to things that are not necessary.

Dave Ramsey has a good article on time management: http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/are-you-budgeting-your-time-effectively

Teaching our children to do this from an early age will help them be able to do this better than us! We can do this by modeling it and also teaching them through visuals of a clock that breaks down your daily routine or explaining why your doing each activity.  PBS has a good article on this: http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/school/time/article3.html

Over the next 40 days ask yourself this question.  Is my time budgeting worth modeling to those around me? Is my time honoring God? Write down your answers and after these 40 days revisit the questions.