MANAGING GOD'S TIME: Guiding Principles

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Chronic Lateness and Hurry Sickness

How are you doing? Stressed from rushing from one meeting to another, and always late? Are you suffering from chronic lateness and hurry sickness? Is your reputation tarnished by frequent lateness? Chronic lateness seeps into our lives and we accept it. Chronic lateness, in some circles, is viewed as positive!

Are you frustrated because everyone demands your presence--Your wife, husband, children, boss, pastor? Will it ever end? Probably not; but don't despair, each person has the same challenge to different degrees. Daily, we can't do everything we want done and others want us to do. Still, each of us has access to the only source to help us deal effectively with this challenge. Jesus, the living God, has given each of us 24 hours daily. He encourages His children to call on Him for help, and He helps. Isn't this great news?

Michel's book, Managing God's Time: Personal Effectiveness Improvement, presents biblical principles, tips, tools, techniques, to help you set priorities and handle daily challenges in each 24 hours. We stress the obvious: you can't manage time, but you can manage your personal effectiveness, such as how you set and carry out priorities. To improve your personal effectiveness, remove these phrases, among others, and their harmful effects from your vocabulary and your life:

I am too busy ...

I don't have enough time ...

I don't have enough money ...

I can't do this ...

I wish I were like ...

I can't work within a budget ...

Priorities

Stuck in a rut, you can use the P-Squares Decision Process to help you out. It will guide you to learn to un-balance your life so you focus on right priorities to improve your personal effectiveness for the Messiah. Priorities that deal with the important. Priorities that lead you away from the urgent to conquer stress. God's priorities! Then you will be able identify areas where God has given you a passion to serve him?

God's Goal

God's goal needs to be pivotal--where He wants you to go. God's goal is perfect. God's goal will ensure you drop the urgent, pick up the important, and focus on right priorities. Do you believe? Still, this is merely the start. A goal without a plan is useless. The plan is the steps to do the goal. The plan shows how to do the goal. Without it, you will be lost. Even so, there is more.

A Spending Plan

A spending plan shows how much time--yes, the time a project might need. Often, we get a goal, do a plan, but do not estimate the cost in time, so we run late, chronically late. We think of a spending plan only in money terms. But it is essential when when get the plan to allocate a spending plan of time and talents needed to do the goal.

Reserve Time

However, it does not end there. After identifying and allocating the time needed for the task, we must build in reserve time, a buffer, a margin, to allow for the unforeseen. Reserve time is not a panacea to do the goal on time. Reserve time is that extra to help reduce stress, look at different alternatives objectively, and one way to help improve your personal effectiveness--that's what time management is about; improving personal effectiveness.

Deflection Speech

Today, are you the person God wants you to be? Jesus can remove negative, gloomy, deflection speech phrases, lift you out of the pothole, and help you to realize your full potential! Get a stopwatch or a watch with a second hand, a pen, and a sheet of paper for a quick experiment: When I say go, start to manage the next five minutes: Go! I guess you see where I am going. You can't manage time. This is not a concept our language and culture promote. We seem more comfortable with deflection speech, like, My shirt is too small, instead of, I have gained weight, or, I have no time, instead of, I have not managed my priorities well. Deflection speech encourages the victim mentality--Stop; it is harmful to your health!

We over commit ourselves, we under-deliver, and we blame a lack of time. Generally, we don't see the central issue: lack of planning and execution - certainly not a lack of time. Will you accept you cannot manage time?

A Level Playing Field

Particularly in this era of political correctness, we need a mindset-shift in order to begin taking responsibility for our actions and inactions. Accepting the level playing field of 24 hours daily is a first and vital step on this pathway toward a new attitude. That might appear simple, but it is extremely difficult to implement any new habit consistently. The next step on the journey is accepting who we are and not who others want us to become. We don't have to look like that person with the perfect figure in the infomercial trying to convince us to buy the stuff she is selling. God loves you and me as we are. Many biblical stories illustrate this truth, which was as true in antiquity as it is today. Let us accept the level playing of 24 hours daily, and do God's priorities.