When Superior Time Management is All Wrong
Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was one of CEF’s 2019 White Papers.
— by Jeff Holler
As high achievers with a higher calling, God has graciously given us much to manage and oversee. If you are like me, always in the back of my mind are the Parable of the Talents, and Jesus’ words that, “from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48–49, NIV). We all have a lot on our plates, and perhaps you strive to become a world-class time manager, squeezing as much out of each day as is humanly possible. In case we need some help doing so, there are hundreds of books that have been written on achieving superior time management and increasing our productivity.
Superior time management, however, can be all wrong when we are masterfully managing our time around the wrong priorities! I know that faith driven entrepreneurs are some of the most focused servant stewards on the planet. Even so, we are not immune to the immense pull away from the path God has prepared for us—a pull that is exerted by the “world,” our personal ambitions and desires, our businesses, and the needs of others.
On what then should our time be focused? About 15 years ago while involved in Strategic Coach, a secular coaching program for entrepreneurs, I was introduced to the idea that intentional time allocation around our highest and most important lifetime priorities trumps superior time management around our calendar. This concept of allocating time around our most valued lifetime priorities immediately resonated with me from a spiritual perspective, knowing that the Scriptures command us to allocate our time, as well as our God-given unique abilities and resources, in alignment with His God-breathed purpose for our lives.
The best example I can provide of allocating time according to a spiritually embedded lifetime priority is one shared by all eight of the subjects of my recently published book, Bigger Than Business, which shares real-world stories of business owners living their purpose. Even though the story subjects reside on six different continents and come from vastly different backgrounds, they each expressed in various ways their lifetime priority to continually grow in intimate relationship with Christ, and to follow God’s will for their lives. Their model for HOW to do so is Jesus Christ. He was the greatest time allocator of all-time! He only had three years to accomplish the Father’s mission, He was in greater demand than anyone who has ever inhabited the earth, and He had 12 very slow learners with whom to work. Yet instead of masterfully managing His appointments, commitments, travel schedule, and demands, He allocated a high percentage of His time to being alone in intimate prayer and relationship with His Father, and in teaching those who would continue His mission. Why? Because even God the Son needed the God the Father’s help to stay the course for which He had been brought into the world; He needed the right team in place ready to continue the mission when He was gone.
Each of my eight book subjects subscribe to Jesus’ model by dedicating what most would consider an immense amount of daily time to being alone in communication with God, taking everything to Him, and gaining clarity about how God wants them to proceed. They also allocate an equally great amount of time to helping others sustain and advance their mission while carving out time each day to study and contemplate how the Scriptures are speaking to them personally. According to each, if their priority is to continually grow in deep and intimate relationship with God and to follow His will for their lives, then how could they do anything other than spend significant time every day with Him and His word, and in helping others grow in truth? Their time, in quantity and quality, is allocated in alignment with these essential God-breathed lifetime priorities. I imagine that someday Christ will say to each of them that, like Mary in the story of Martha and Mary, they have chosen to allocate their time to “what is better.” As you know, Martha lost sight of the “few things that are needed,” because she was upset about the “many things” at hand to be managed that were pulling her away from relational time with Christ (Luke 10:38–41).
Discerning our faith-inspired lifetime priorities is the fundamental starting point to becoming excellent time allocators. Several CEF members and honorees are featured in Bigger Than Business and share their faith-inspired lifetime priorities, how they pursue them, and why they are important. Alan Barnhart and his brother established a priority to be faithful stewards and not to let earthly success lead to spiritual compromise or failure. Jorge Nishimura expresses his love for God by serving others. Dr. Robbie Sonderegger has made it a lifetime priority to allow God to leverage his adventuresome spirit and problem-solving abilities to transform mindsets and improve lives around the globe. Dr. Suparno Adijanto shares how and why he clears the path so others can grow and thrive in their walk with Christ. In each case the individual’s allocation of time is in beautiful alignment with their understanding of God’s priorities and purpose for their life.
Fifteen years ago, after gaining an understanding of the difference between time allocation and time management, I wrote down my five most important lifetime priorities. Then I went to work re-ordering my daily and ongoing time allocation around these priorities. My five lifetime priorities, to which I have since strived to prayerfully and obediently allocate my time, are as follows:
To daily seek and live the purpose for which God created me, obediently following wherever He may lead me, and doing so with joy, hope, and absolute trust in Him;
To persistently strive to deepen the love and intimacy of the most valued relationships to which Christ has led, or will lead me—especially with my wife Charlsey, my family, and cherished friends and colleagues;
To purposefully and profitably grow, on a foundation of biblical principles, the ministry/business that is The Capital Chart Room LTD, as well as any other business or venture to which God may entrust me as His servant steward;
To be a good and faithful servant steward, to receive and give back to God with open hands, heart, and mind, all that I am and have in a manner that helps bring others into a relationship, or into deeper relationship with Him;
To be in better health—spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally—at age 90 than at age 35 (God willing that I live that long).
It is important to note is that these are lifetime priorities. Therefore, from each of these priorities come daily living habits that impact everything. This includes my prayer life, the time given to my church and family, what I can do to continually improve and grow my relationship with Charlsey, the people I hire to which I can confidently delegate work so our company (aka “ministry”) can be “self-managing” (i.e., run without me), where and how God is calling me to allocate my God-given time, talent, and financial resources, my exercise, nutrition, and sleep routines, etc. You get the idea. These priorities directly impact EVERY facet of my life, and subsequently how I manage my time around them. Honoring them has also empowered me to become an accomplished delegator who is skilled at managing all the other demands in the limited time that isn’t allocated to my lifetime priorities.
Additionally, since these are lifetime priorities, I can’t push them off to be addressed later. For example, I can’t wait until I am 89 to start working on my lifetime priority to be in better health at age 90 than I was at 35. As a result, these priorities have also become the focal point of much of my prayer time. David Green, owner of Hobby Lobby stores, once advised me to never make an important decision until I have prayerful clarity regarding God’s will on the matter. God has placed these priorities on my heart, so my prayers are often seeking whether an opportunity, request, relationship, or time commitment fulfills one of them. Once I have prayerful clarity, I can, without stress or worry, either say “no” or pursue it with spiritual fervor!
As you can imagine, my time allocation and related daily habits are certainly not perfect—not even close. I need God’s help as much as, and probably more than most. That is why this daily process of prayerfully seeking and following God’s will has become so important and valuable to me.
So, what about you? What are your faith-inspired lifetime priorities? I strongly urge you to prayerfully contemplate them, write them down, and regularly revisit them.
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Are you willing to allocate the clear majority of your time, unique abilities, and resources to achieving your God-breathed lifetime priorities?
Another way to understand your lifetime priorities is to write down the most important things you DON’T want to regret on the day you meet your Maker. This list will point you right back to your most important priorities. For example, I don’t want Christ to show me something amazing He had planned for me, but I didn’t experience it because I wasn’t seeking and following His will. I also don’t want to regret not giving my family the very best of my time, attention, and love. All the things I don’t want to regret are spiritually linked to my lifetime priorities.
What about you? What don’t you want to regret at the end of your lifetime?
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Allocating our time according to our God-inspired lifetime priorities is not easy because “life happens.” Family and work challenges are a given, health issues are inescapable, and unexpected circumstances are always on the horizon. But no matter what is going on in our lives, Scripture tells us that if we prayerfully seek and trust how God might use the various circumstances to help us fulfill His will for our lives, we will gain a perspective of hope and an indescribable peace (John 16:33; Philippians 4:4–9; Romans 12:1–2).
God also shakes up our world occasionally and points us in a direction we haven’t anticipated. For example, in Bigger Than Business, Jorge Nishimura shares how he was dismissed from his family business by his father and siblings. As Jorge took this to God, then trusted and followed His new priorities, the answer for why this happened slowly unfolded. In hindsight, it became clear that God took Jorge through a season of preparation for something else. As his family experienced Jorge’s forgiveness and observed his spiritual transformation, they understood that they needed him to come back into the company leadership and help repair their divisions and restore their family’s unity. Jorge ultimately became the chairman of the family enterprises and has led the process to empower the third generation to assume their leadership and ownership roles. Jorge’s time allocation was changed by his family, but he continued to seek God’s priorities and allocate his time accordingly, even though he had no idea where it was leading him. As is always the case, if we are following the path God has prepared for us the one thing we can trust and know for certain is that it will end well!
I encourage you to prayerfully consider, and then to write down the lifetime priorities God places on your heart. Then look through your calendar, focusing on to what and to whom you are currently giving the best of your time, and consider whether that aligns with your priorities. If there is any disconnect, I hope you will commit to faithfully re-allocating your God-given time, unique abilities, and resources accordingly. I also recommend that you hold yourself accountable, which is easy to do. Most calendar programs allow the color coding of appointments, so you only need to come up with a different color for each lifetime priority and appropriately color-code each calendar item. It then becomes easy to scroll through your calendar and see how you are doing!
Here’s to all of us choosing “what is better”!
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[Special thanks to Nathan Dumlao for the cover photo]