This life is all we get. Once it’s done, it’s done and there’s no getting extra time (Luke 12:25).
Every minute, every second, matters for eternity. We have maybe 70-80 years to affect our entire eternity, to run the race with endurance, striving our absolute BEST, giving EVERYTHING we’ve got to please God, be a shining light to others, and affect the world at large (not to mention get heaven rewards for our good works).
I’m not here to mess around or waste my time. So many people ask me, “How do you do it all? You’re a single mom, run several empires, take care of kids, the home, everything all on your own AND have time to serve?”
It’s like it’s so impressive and they just don’t get it.
It’s not really that impressive. 😊 ANYONE can do it!! It’s just that I got REAL good at managing my time and spending it super wisely on things that matter and cutting out things that don’t.
So today, I wanted to talk about all the time wasters you’re doing that are sucking your heaven rewards from you and your usability for God. These are the encumbrances Paul speaks of that keep you from running the race with endurance, charge, vigor, and LIFE! You know, the things that make you wake up in the morning, jump out of bed, EXCITED for your day!!
The more UNNCESSARY tasks you cut out of your life, the better. The more time you’ll have to focus on what God DOES want you to spend your life on, the more time you’ll have with the things that matter: spending more time with your husband, and kids, serving your community more, you know, the things that make you HAPPY!
But right now, you’re stuck in the weeds (unknowingly) so it’s stealing your happiness away. Let’s remove as many of those joy thieves and get you happy again, spending your time where it pleases you and God the most, spending your time wisely!
You ready?!
Are You Spending Your Time Wisely?
See how many of these you can kick out of your life to free up your time!
1) You’re serving too much
Did you realize you can serve TOO much?
Serving sounds good, right?! We all want to serve other people, but you’re serving on the Bible study team, the PTA, your kid’s soccer team, lunches and cookies for friends, the bus stop kids, your friends, people you know, and so on.
While serving is a GREAT thing, you can easily become burned out if you serve TOO much. Serving is all about balance! You must put yourself and your family as a priority, and serve also, balancing the two.
If you serve too much your needs aren’t being met, then you become miserable and aren’t really good to anyone because you’re cranky all the time.
Likewise, your serving in too many places means you’re not focusing on serving in ONE place and serving it well. It’s like having your hands in too many cookie jars or balancing too many plates. You need to focus on the most important 1-2 places to serve and serve WHOLE-HEARTEDLY there!!!
Don’t run a bunch of serving tasks, don’t spin your wheels trying to do too much. Think about Paul’s analogy, run the race with endurance. It’s ONE race, not 50 races at once. He’s running one. He’s doing one thing at a time. One stretch of the track at a time. You cannot run everywhere at once. It’s just not possible. You will become (or already are) frazzled.
Keep things incredibly simple and streamlined and quit some things to focus on only 1-2 serving ministries at a time. Contrary to popular belief, you CANNOT do everything at once and no one expects you to!!!
Read that again!
No one expects you to run yourself ragged. It’s about pacing yourself. Balance.
2) You’re focusing too much on a clean house
I don’t know how many people this will upset, but if God shows up to your house right this second, He’s not going to care if your home is 100% dust-free.
He’s not going to care if there are five dishes in the sink or a laundry pile that needs to be done.
God is not concerned with those things. Think: Mary/Martha (Luke 10:38-42). God is concerned with our HEARTS.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your dishes are not making it into heaven. 😜 You will. Your kids will. Your husband. Your family. The people you go to church with. Your friends.
Life is about focusing on the hearts and souls of others and NOT the meaningless tasks in life.
Am I saying you should never clean? Absolutely not. Of course, you want to keep a clean home FOR your family and to be the Proverbs 31 wife, but at the end of the day, your priority should be souls, not inanimate objects.
Once your priorities are straight, it’ll help you run the race with endurance (Hebrews 12:1), because you’re now focusing on the right things, the things GOD focuses on: people!
3) You’re not taking shortcuts where you can
I’ve heard it a lot, it’s the woman’s job to go grocery shopping. But that’s not true.
It’s the woman’s job to RUN THE HOUSE. To MANAGE the home.
Running the home, and managing it well, means delegation!
You’re not delegating where you need to. You’re carrying TOO much of the burdens of daily living, so you can’t get to serving, ministry, or spending more quality time with your husband, because you’re so bogged down by all the “chores” of life.
To give you an example, as I’m writing this blog post, someone else is shopping my groceries for me!
And I’m sorry ladies, but men are WAY better at shopping for groceries than women.
We women sit there at each item, trying to save a few pennies and get super overwhelmed by all the selections. It’s just how we’re wired. Or we’re stressfully dealing with a bunch of kids running around, making it tough on us, and affecting our concentration. Our hearts are in the right place, we want to save money and do a good job for our families, but at the expense of a few pennies, we just end up spinning our wheels, buying too much because stores are super good at making us impulse buy, and stressing ourselves out.
Men are more: get from point A to point Z as quickly as possible. They are more streamlined in how their brains work and grocery shopping is one of the ways they excel.
But you don’t want your husband to do it, because you want to spend as much time with him as possible, so order on a place like Instacart. Instacart is my FAVORITE and they do groceries as well as restaurants! I’ve been using them for YEARS and absolutely love them. I’ve never had any issues with them and they stand by their service completely.
If there’s a problem, they make it right. Someone didn’t replace something right? Got something expired or spoiled? They take care of it with a full refund (or credit to your account).
But for me, the trick has been to try to get MEN to shop my orders instead of women. Women are okay (most do a great job), but men are a lot more streamlined and the process is always so fast and better.
I’ve had women shop my orders and literally just message me on every single item in the cart. It’s a nightmare. So, I try to get men to shop my orders as they go more smoothly. In order to do that, I usually make my smaller orders (15 items or less) at 6 pm at night. It’s right after dinner, and they usually are working on a few different orders at once and throw mine in.
It works out perfectly because it’s super fast, I get all the things I need, and it’s almost always a guy shopping it so everything goes super smoothly!
6 pm in the evening isn’t a time when you want to get your whole shopping done for two weeks though. Start those early morning, around 8 am, if you can.
But you definitely don’t want to be driving around to 5 different stores to get a couple of things at each store. Just purchase on Instacart and let them help you with your task.
This idea definitely won’t work for ALL people. If you have 6 kids and you’re used to shopping at places like Costco once a week for groceries, still do that (although Instacart DOES have Costco on there!)
Definitely do what works for YOU and your family, but honestly, even though it costs a little more to have my groceries delivered than if I did it myself, it’s been something that I cannot live without. I just love it so much. No stress, no fighting the crowds, no people stealing my parking space, no dealing with rude cashiers, no lugging heavy things around. It’s all super streamlined and simple!
Delegating groceries is not the only thing you can do either. What about household work?
As my kids have grown, they now wash their own laundry, hang it up, and put everything away. It’s not my job to baby teenagers; it’s my job to teach them how to become self-sufficient. That way, they can not only take care of themselves when they move out, but also care for their own families in the future.
Have your teen daughter cook one meal a week. Teaching her how to prepare meals, buy food, balance and budget a checkbook. It’s all very necessary for HER to become the Proverbs 31 woman too!
Have your son mow the lawn. Have him scrub the bathtubs (men have more strength and can clean/scrub better). If your kids have their own bathrooms, older kids should clean their own messes. You’re their mom, not their housekeeper. They need to be prepared for when they move out. 😊
I have my son first wash all the pots and pans and then I go over them and wash them. It’s so much easier because he can scrub them clean and then my work is much lighter.
Having your kids help out with more chores not only prepares them for the future, but helps them have a good work ethic. Teaching them how to clean properly (not just swishing dirt around), things like that. It’s all very helpful for them to learn responsibility, trust, and cleanliness.
And don’t just teach your daughters to clean, teach your sons as well. Your son will want to help his wife with the housework sometimes, both to be thoughtful and to support her. Teaching him these skills so that he and his wife can work as a team is a valuable lesson!
4) You’re not disciplined
Point blank…you slack off too much. You watch too much TV, spend too much time watching gossip shows, listening to podcasts, doing things like that, that don’t count for eternity.
Yes, enjoy life. Yes, have fun. Yes, do hobbies. But don’t OVERDO it.
It’s all about balance.
Do the things that make you happy, but get all your work done. Don’t wanna do your work, do it for a short amount of time, set your timer, and then treat yourself to a podcast.
Do what it takes to get your work done AND spend time on the things you enjoy. But don’t waste your whole day on things that don’t matter. Remember, souls are what matter. Your kids, your husband, your family, the world at large. Not TV or drama. Flee drama and anyone who routinely causes drama, always!
5) You’re in conflict too much
Do you ever feel like every time you’re around your husband, it’s just one big conflict? You guys are fighting about everything and it just doesn’t seem peaceful, or happy, like it once was.
Maybe a friend or outside family member is causing you a lot of drama and you just can’t seem to get out of it.
You’re in too much conflict.
Remember that YOU control your life. YOU decide who gets to be in it. Your marriage isn’t a relationship you want to end obviously, but if your friend or outside family member is making your life complicated, stay away from them. Back off time spent with them. God wants us to live our lives in peace and if your relationship is not peaceful, something is wrong and you need to fix it.
Fighting is a HUGE time-suck. It’s a waste of energy too because usually no one wins.
If you’re fighting too much with your husband, learn to pick and choose the battles you fight over. Is what you’re fighting over a hill to die on? Will you remember what you fought about 10 years down the line? If it’s not THAT important, something you’d remember, a hill to die on, stop fighting.
Go to God in prayer, and let HIM change your husband’s heart. In the meantime, keep the peace and give it all to God. In this way, you’re not faking being nice to your husband because you gave everything up to God for Him to work out in His will and His precious timing.
Keeping the peace in your home is one of the major things you can do to free up your time!
6) You’re not batching your work
When I first learned about batching my work, I was like, “What is THAT?!” I had no clue what it was all about. Now, I can’t live without batching everything I do!
Basically, batching your work is doing like-things with like-things at the same time.
A good example is say you’re on your way to the bathroom and you pass by the kitchen. Now’s a great time to quickly scoop up that glass on the kitchen counter and put it in the sink. Tidy the kitchen up for a couple of minutes on your way to the bathroom.
Yes, walking to the kitchen is only a few steps and doesn’t take up a lot of time, but if you start thinking about ALL the ways you can batch your work, you will save TONS and TONS of time!!!
As you’re putting away your groceries, do a quick tidy of your cans in your pantry. You’re already there anyway.
Run errands all on the same day, at the same time. Make appointments for the same time/day so you’re not out driving around a bunch, wasting gas and time at all those stoplights. 😜
If you’re a business owner, do all your similar tasks at the same time. For example, one day I’ll work on writing 5-10 blog posts and just work on that all day. The next day, I’ll work on social media, pinning things, driving traffic to my website, etc. Another day I’ll work strictly on creating printables. I’ll create a bunch of products with the same theme and put them in the shop. Here’s a great example of that:
While all those products have different titles and seem different (and customers will see them in different categories and through different searches), they are actually created using the same design elements and were created all in one day! Since it’s one design, it’s very easy to copy/paste and make quick work of creating the printables.
Think about all the ways that you can batch your work. What can you do with other similar things so that you’re saving time? The possibilities are endless, and the more you get into a habit of batching your work, the more streamlined, peaceful, and calm your life will be. It’ll free up more time for you to do more of what you want to do in life and be used by God more!
No longer will you be running on a treadmill, rushing around, or spinning your wheels. Everything is streamlined and systematized, and life is SO much easier when it is!! 🥰
7) You’re focusing too much on fads
While upgrading is always fun and exciting, often offering more modern ways of doing things, so many people, including Christians, are quick to jump on the latest shiny bandwagon.
As you get older, you’ll realize that fads come and go and are like chasing the wind.
Yes, update things when necessary or when you want to, but don’t turn constant upgrading into a way of life. Many people will tell you upgrading is absolutely necessary, but YOU are the best judge of that.
Do your research and find what works for you. Don’t be a stick in the mud and never upgrade, but don’t go around spinning your wheels, upgrading everything that comes out.
The perfect example of this is iPhones. Every year they release a new iPhone. That’s how they make their money and while it can be fascinating to upgrade, you’re actually losing a lot of money by doing it.
Rather than upgrading your iPhone every year, upgrade it every 2-3 years instead. You’re still getting new technology, but you don’t have to be the first one in line to go from an 18MP camera to a 20MP camera.
Wasting money is definitely not on God’s agenda and neither is spending a bunch of time learning new technology. Learn to do what fits for you and don’t worry about always having the latest, newest, shiniest things. Sometimes classic, timeless, is the best way to go!!!
