Time Management Principles Series

Time Management Principles

Living on Borrowed Time Series – Part 1

INTRO:

- A lot of people think that managing your time is about cramming more and more into your day.

- They think that going, going, going, and going is the key – and they look for advanced tricks like how to brush your teeth while combing your hair while eating your breakfast while reading the paper while driving down the highway to work.

- But time management, whether it’s Christian or not, is not about doing more things – it’s about doing the right things.

- What it really comes down to is that time management is about life management.

- And, as Christians, we manage our very lives based on the principles of the one who came so that we may have life and have it abundantly.

- Introduce series – Living on Borrowed Time

- Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

o This is a prayer – he’s saying, “Teach us to live as if we are living on borrowed time… teach us to number our days.”

o That we may gain a what? A heart of wisdom

o If we live our life knowing that our days are numbered, we’re going to make better decisions.

o Whenever you think that you have more of something than you need, you tend to waste it!

- JAR AND ROCKS ILLUSTRATION:

o The Jar represents our day – 24 hour period of time.

o All of the little pebbles in the jar represent all of the little things that you do that waste your time.

• They are things you don’t want to give up, but they’re not a very big deal.

• For a lot of you in this room, half of the pebbles in this jar represent Facebook.

• They represent shopping on-line, they represent driving through car lots to look at cars you can’t afford. They represent driving through neighborhoods to look at homes you can’t afford. They represent all those rounds of golf, all the television that you watch, surfing the Internet and playing candy crush – it represents all the things that occupy our time.

• These pebbles are just things that aren’t critical to our success – they’re just things.

o Then you have the BIG THINGS – These are all the things that we would admit are important.

• Kid’s – obviously, we have to put our kids in the time jar, they’re important.

• Spouse

• Work

• Church on Sunday / Maintaining your walk Monday through Saturday

• Exercise

o Everything is overflowing – for many of us this represents our life – there isn’t enough time in the day.

- PUT ROCKS IN SECOND JAR: Here’s the main point I want you to see in this message series – the key to getting more accomplished in life is not simply adding, the key to getting more done is prioritizing correctly.

- Write this down: Priority determines Capacity.

o It’s what you put in first that determines your capacity in life.

o [Pour Pebbles onto Rocks in the Jar] – Here comes Facebook, Pinterest, Email, etc.

o Here’s what I want you to see – priority determines the capacity of your life.

- Ephesians 5:15-16, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.”

o That phrase “making the most of your time” – some translations say “redeeming the time”

o In the Greek – it’s a word that means “to buy out of the market.”

o It was used of buying something valuable in the marketplace

o “Time” is not chronos (chronology / time sequence)… it’s the word kairos which means “opportunity.”

o Kairos means an appointed time in the purpose of God – it’s a window of opportunity when God can act.

BRANDON’S LAWS OF UNMANAGED TIME:

1. LAW #1 – Unmanaged Time Flows Toward My Weaknesses –

a. I really believe that the majority of people spend the majority of their time doing things that they are second best at.

b. Why? Because unseized time will flow in the direction of one’s weaknesses.

2. LAW #2 – Unmanaged Time Comes Under the Influence of Dominant People in My World

a. I am a people pleaser by nature! I love people and I hate to disappoint them.

b. But I quickly learned when I first started pastoring that if I do not take control of my schedule there was about a hundred people in my little country church that would!

c. I quickly learned that strong people in my world controlled my time better than I did because I had not taken the initiative to command the time before they got to me.