For the last ten years, I have been in a never-ending wrestling match with my schedule. All I want is harmony — rest and work, peace and productivity. Sadly, as soon as I have a grip on the illusive work-life balance, I helplessly watch it slip through my fingers.
I know I’m not alone. As I look around me, I see friends, family, clients, and acquaintances who are all on the same quest of trying to tame their time. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we remain held hostage to our calendars. Our days overflow with carpools, to-do lists, after-school activities, laundry, work projects, and unfinished tasks. Eventually, we find ourselves adrift in the fog of frenzy with no sense of time, self, or God.
It’s enough to sink you.
I would love to spend this entire blog post talking to you about approaches to time management and techniques for streamlining your schedule. I would love to tell you about how Theme Days, Batch Work, the 5/25 Rule, and email templates have saved my sanity. I would tell you all about how I use my iPhone’s Screen Time to prevent distraction and I would write whole paragraphs about about the concept of attention residue and the inefficiency of multitasking. I would probably end with a long discussion about the wisdom I’ve gleaned from Cal Newport’s Deep Work and James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and then I’d give you several action items to put in your calendar/LifePlanner/bullet journal/PowerSheets and you’d be on your way.
But the truth is, productivity tips are short-lived hacks if you haven’t dealt with the root of your time management problem. Color-coordinated calendars and good intentions can only get you so far. If we don’t address the reasons why we are so busy, we will remain perpetually overextended.
It’s taken me the better part of a decade, but I am closer to true time management than ever before. I have actual authority over how I spend my time now. Want to know my secret?
Stillness.
Be Still
When was the last time you sat on your couch and were still for 15 minutes? No TV. No iPhone. No reading, praying, talking, or creating to-do lists. Just sitting. Being.
I dare you to try it and not squirm out of your skin. We’ll do just about anything to avoid stillness, silence, and solitude. Why? We believe achievement/affirmation informs our worth/identity. We have been conditioned to believe productivity equals meaning. A’s are better than C’s, being the team captain is better than sitting on the sidelines, and hard work is rewarded with a promotion and a pat on the back.
Stillness, on the other hand, raises questions. Hard, unsettling, and important questions.
Is my life meaningful? Who am I if I am not in motion? Am I important? Am I enough? Am I loved? Does God see me? Does my life have value if I am not doing and creating and accomplishing?
We can deal with these questions in one of two ways: seeking answers from God in stillness or avoiding the questions altogether as our calendars remain aflame with the angst of over-commitment. The answers do not, cannot, come from more striving and accomplishing. The answers come when we cease striving and rest quietly with God in stillness, Scripture, and prayer (Psalm 38:15).
Regardless of why your schedule isn’t working for you — your inability to disappoint people, being engrossed in distraction (I’m looking at you, iPhone!), trying to impress people with your chronic-overachiever antics, maintaining an Instagram persona of “running on coffee and dry shampoo,” and keeping up with all the other #crazybusy people in your life — the antidote is the same: stillness in Christ.
I can hear you say, “I have regular quiet times with God – stillness isn’t an issue for me.” Yes, but can I just gently ask… What do you do in your quiet time? Journal? Pray? Study, read the Bible, read commentaries, read devotionals, memorize verses, learn, intercede, sing, draw, walk, write, or work on your current Bible study? That’s a lot of doing. I’m talking more about a “be still and know that I am God” state of being (Psalm 46:10). The kind of being that only silence, solitude, and sitting before the Lord can bring about.
Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” As we sit in stillness with God over time, we will hear His singing over us, feel the depths of His gladness, and know the extent of His love in the core of our being. We will have our answers and finally, our compulsion towards striving and moving will cease. We will begin to find contentment in living a quiet life (1 Thessalonians 4:11) at a pace that is sustainable.
Say No
So, how exactly do stillness and having answers to our deepest questions help us reform our weekly schedules? When we stop finding our identity in production and achievement, we are finally free to say no.
If there is one thing that has revolutionized my time and schedule more than anything, it has been my ability to say no. I’m a people-pleaser by nature and I hate disappointing people, but saying no has become an indispensable weapon against having a perpetually full plate. If we don’t start saying no – to volunteer requests, projects at work, demanding three-year-olds, after-school activities, ministry opportunities, etc. – we will never truly gain mastery over our schedules. Nowadays, I delight in saying no. I examine my capacity and say a hard no to anything that would cause me to reenter the chaos of an overloaded schedule.
No amount of tips and tricks for time management will be as effective as simply saying no to doing more than you are able. Healthy time management requires sacrifice – you can sacrifice your sanity or your striving. Our ability to say no to overcommitment is born out of a healthy identity found in Christ and not in our work. When we believe doing more does not amount to being worth more, we will finally truly manage our time.
Written by Rebecca Young
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Jen Roland
Featured Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay
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