The Love Budget - Part 3- {Time}

Everyday is bank account, and time is our currency. So, no one's rich, no body's poor, we get the same 24 hours each. So, how are you going to spend it? Will you invest or squander. Try to get ahead or help some one whose under? --- Chris Rice - Life Means So Much

Time is ticking away. Tick, tick, ticking away! --- DC Talk.

Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. ~Dion Boucicault

I am going to be the first person to say that I should be the LAST person to write an article about spending your time wisely. (It was hard for me to find time to write it!)

I waste my time doing so many things I should not: TV, Online, sleeping (ok- sleeping is not a waste of time now... but back when I used to sleep in until 11 or 12 noon it was a waste of time!) I don't spend enough time doing the things that I should: Praying, reading the bible, cleaning my house

Mmmmm, maybe I should be writing this post to get my act together!

A while back, my pastor talked about margins. You know, the white space on a piece of paper. He side that the important stuff is in the body of the page, and people like to add stuff to the margins. But if you add too much to the margins it takes away from the body of the work. He said we need to keep the margins of our life clean and uncluttered.

We need to schedule the BIG things. The things that are good for you and your family, and get ride of the little things. We need to learn to say "no." to things that are not good our families. Sometimes good things are not good for your family. It is all about keeping your margins clear.

So, How doe we budget our time? Here is what we (The Hubs and I) came up with:

Sit down and think about how you spend a normal week. Maybe you want to keep a journal one week. Recording all each day's activities.

Now, take a good look at where you are spending your time. Highlight the things that are useful and necessary {sleep, work, eating, etc} in one color, the things that are enjoyable and manageable {reading, dates with the hubby, hobbies etc} in another and the things that are wasting your time or are not a good fit for your family in a third color.

The next step is charting out how you want your week to look for now on. You want to keep your necessary and useful things, make time for your enjoyable things and get rid of the wastes. You can do this on a piece of paper, a calender, poster board, on outlook, or in your head! Try it out for a few weeks, and then take a look at it again to see if it is working or not. Readjust as you see fit.

I know that this is not revolutionary or anything. But it is like Karly's post last week. Sometimes it is the simplest things that help us get back on track!