Time...you have to have it

Clock, Advanced Mathematics„Compared to the ability to organise a single day’s work effectively, everything else in life is a piece of cake.“ as the good old Goethe once said. I agree with him. At the moment, I feel like I’m 100 hours behind. There are so many things I’d have liked to have finished by now but haven’t got round to yet:

  • Selecting the best pictures for the new calendar, „365 Promises from God“
  • Cleaning windows
  • Cleaning shoes
  • Doing the laundry
  • Book flights for conferences
  • Listing items on eBay
  • Writing articles for the LEA and SAM blog
  • Keep people informed about upcoming courses, seminars and events
  • Design a heating system for the boat or seek advice on this
  • Further my education: coaching, nutrition, fitness
  • Spiritual growth
  • Sow or plant herbs, lettuce and tomatoes
  • Preparing for the next seminar or lecture
  • Sort books
  • Caring for the leather of your handbag
  • Do some strengthening and balance exercises
  • Create a list of my business trips in 2013 for tax purposes
  • Write short descriptions of new titles
  • Continue to the short biography of Gutenberg

…and in between, eating, showering, pottering about on the boat, replying to 60–80 emails a day…and much more besides.

I delegate tasks as much as I can. And I make the most of certain moments in a particular way: I mainly use my journeys on the S-Bahn to the ship for further study, and I use the time I spend brushing my teeth or waiting on the platform for my gym routine – no matter how stupid the other passengers look at me. Listening to spiritual music when I’m relaxing, dreaming and solving problems whilst asleep. Watering flowers to unwind. That’s actually quite effective. But there’s still a huge amount of work left for me to do.

I find it – despite all the time-management and self-management techniques I’ve mastered, either actively or at least passively – a constant challenge to allocate my time wisely. What’s more important – a new newsletter or further training? Exercise or cooking? Studying or cleaning the windows? Tidying up or relaxing? Playing with a child or pastoral care with an adult? No one can give you a completely watertight answer to that. In many cases, it’s impossible to say what the best use of time really is right now.

I ask God for wisdom – sometimes, during my morning prayer time, I feel a pull in a certain direction: „This is important today!“, sometimes tasks arise out of urgency… such as when an eBay dispatch needs to be sorted within a certain deadline… And sometimes I really don’t know what the best use of my time is… and do one of the many things I consider important… and hope to make good progress… and perhaps at some point have only 99 hours’ worth of tasks left that I’d have liked to have finished already… or maybe just 97….

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