Time and Lack of It

For most of my adult life, and especially since my daughter was born, I have been a proponent of not over-scheduling.  Something of a "less is more" advocate you might say.  How then is it that I feel like I have fallen "off the wagon" so to speak with my time management recently?

To begin answering my own question, life is hard, and we have so many things coming at us that we often don't realize just how full we are loading our plates until we feel the overwhelm.  That is where I am today.  I feel a little of the overwhelm, and some of it is not strictly my own, but a nice portion vicariously for my wife and daughter as well.  We each have a lot going on in our lives, as do you I'm quite sure.  The question becomes, how much of it is necessary, and how much have we chosen as excess and how much of the excess is truly too much?

This brings us back to that tried and true topic of priorities.  Yes, I'm going there!  Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines priority as:

Definition of priority

plural priorities

1a (1) : the quality or state of being prior 

(2) : precedence in date or position of publication—used of taxa

b (1) : superiority in rank, position, or privilege 

(2) : legal precedence in exercise of rights over the same subject matter

2: a preferential rating; especially : one that allocates rights to goods and services usually in limited supply 

• that project has top priority

: something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives

Do we really set priorities?  This is a question we must grapple with if we indeed want to master the allocation of our time.  Currently I would say that I am failing, but less miserably than most.  How about you?  Are you setting your life up around a small number of priorities?  If so, then that is fabulous.  My guess however, is that you are not, and that you are working hard to keep your head above water trying to do it all.  Am I right?

Today take a moment and rediscover what is important to you.  Find those few building blocks that need to be in place as a foundation upon which you build the rest of your activity.  I can't speak to what this will look like for you, but here are a few suggestions from my own self-examination:

1. Faith - there should be time in each and every day to practice and express your faith.  Nothing can bring you back to your essence quite like recognizing that God provides for our needs, and sustains us on our journey.
2. Family - recognize the value of those who are closest to you, and build one another up with love, understanding, and encouragement.  When this building block is neglected your foundation will assuredly be shaky.
3. Fitness - again a foundational issue.  We cannot function at the high levels we desire when we don't take care of the machine (our mind and body).  As someone who deals with chronic illness I now recognize this more than ever, and to be honest this has been one of my greatest recent struggles.  Understand your body, and the phrase "your health is your wealth".  Recently I have forgotten this and made too many poor choices.  I have seen it revealed in some of my numbers, known it in my mind, and excused it to my own detriment.  Don't make this mistake.  I am personally re-committing to finding the joy of improved health and hope that you will too.  Let's do this together.
4. Finance - Yes this old bugaboo is troublesome for most of us.  Take a few minutes today to sit and do a financial inventory to see where you are in this area of life as well.  Finances can be a huge stressor for us affecting each of the three other building blocks listed before it.  Most of us are not wealthy by the "American Dream" standard, and many of us struggle to keep the right balance in this area between living for today and planning for tomorrow.  We should remember though that just by virtue of being an American we are wealthy by the standards of most of the world.

Yes these four come up over and over again as some of the top building blocks for creating a life that rocks!  I encourage you, and remind myself, to take a look, fine tune, and Make Today Great!