Music Well I'm here with Jason Dohme and we have come together to discuss a matter that we face every single day, the management of our time. So as it turns out, Jason, you never outgrow the need to manage your time. So true. And when a person encounters the gospel, the gospel changes, of course, everything about your life. Something really significant that the gospel does change is just how you think about your time.

Scott, run us through what you think the Bible says about time. Well, for one thing, it's pretty clear that time is precious. God created it, and all time is an outworking of God's sovereignty. So time is sort of the theater upon which his glory is declared. So time is precious.

Time is holy in that sense. The Bible doesn't say time is holy, but what we do know is that God works out his holiness through the things that happen in time. And so I think the first thing we have to realize is that time is the context for the glorifying of God as God is orchestrating history through time. There is a timeline of history. And so, you know, all of redemptive history is framed in this matter of time.

In Galatians chapter 4 verse 4, the Apostle Paul says, in the fullness of time God sent his son. So we should think about time as a very precious thing, something that God is very concerned about, and he's really collected up all of redemptive history in this matter of time. The other thing that we need to recognize is that our time is short. It's very short. Psalm 39 verses 5 and 6 say this, indeed, you have made my days as handbreaths and my age is as nothing before you.

Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor. Selah." And then verse 6, Surely every man walks about like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up riches and does not know who will gather them. Time is short.

We have a very, very tight time horizon in which to glorify God. And this is God's wisdom. He gives human beings very small periods of time to glorify Him. Hundreds of billions of time periods for his glorification. Psalm 90 says this, verse 4, for a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night.

So time is precious. What makes something precious? The limited nature of it. You know gold is precious because there's not much of it. Diamonds are precious because there's not many of them.

Time is precious because you don't have much. You only have a few short years to live, and so it's very precious. Let's talk about choices. Christians are always making choices. Time is a category that requires choices.

What does the Bible say about the choices about use of time? Sure. Well of course all time should be used for one purpose, is to bring glory to God, but there are some really specific things that the Bible speaks about that time should be consumed in doing, and I'll just mention a couple of them in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 12 we learned that we should use our time to exhort one another you know we spend a lot of time we have a lot of face time And what should we do during that face time? Well, there are a number of things that we should do, but one of them is to exhort one another. Hebrews 3, 12 says, "'Beware, brethren, lest there be any of you "'in an evil heart of unbelief "'in departing from the living God, "'but exhort one another daily.

"'While it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." So time is given to us in order to exhort one another, that we're very well aware of the important matters, and we speak to one another about those important matters. We should be very careful with our time and to use it for various expressions of wisdom. That's another way that we use time, to declare the wisdom of God. That's why we read in Psalm 90, verse 12, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. So time is given so that we would acquire wisdom and that we would use it in everyday life.

This is the purpose of time, to acquire wisdom. Amen. So if you and I were out on the street and we heard just average people talking about time, more likely than not we would hear someone talk about me time or the importance of protecting leisure time. What are your thoughts on that? Right, well people might want to claim me time, but it's actually all God's time.

And we also need to recognize that because time is created by God for His own glory, that our time is not our own. There really is no such thing as me time. We are not our own, but rather we are slaves of Christ. And So the time has not been given to us so that we might spend it in any way that we want, because the time isn't about us. God tells us that we are slaves of God.

God tells us that we are prisoners of God. When you're in prison, you have time. You have time, and you can use it. In fact, some of the most remarkable things ever written have been written by men who were in prison, like John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote remarkable things.

He had time. These men used their time as prisoners. What do you do when you are a prisoner of God in time? You use it for for His glory. God designed time so that we would spend it in productive labors for the purpose of declaring his generosity in everything.

Our work, our lives, our relationships all have their function and to proclaim the generosity of God. And God has generously given us time, and so we should in turn generously devote all of our time to God. God actually in many places says that he wants to control your time. For example, God wants to control what you do every week. That's why we read in Exodus chapter 20, six days you shall labor and do all your work, and on the seventh day you rest.

So God wants to control your week. He wants you to work six days and he wants you to rest one day. God wants absolute control of your schedule and not just in this macro level of he wants to control your week, but he wants you to do everything for his glory. Whatever you do, do with all your might. Why?

For the glory of God. So God wants to control your time. So I think the first time management principle is this. God owns your time. He has authority over your time.

Our time is not for us to spend any way that we wish. And that God would regulate the spending of our time through His Spirit and through His Word. So God is very concerned about the use of our time and One of the most common rejections of the authority of God over time is in the keeping of the Sabbath, because people want to do whatever they want on the Sabbath. While on the other hand, the Bible has really clearly explained what he wants his people to do on that one day. And on the other days, he's explained it.

I want you to work. And then I want you to rest. So if we could, I'd like to talk about productivity. We're Americans, and so productivity is big here. So my question for you is, is productivity big here and many other places in the world because we're in an industrialized Western nation and it sort of calls forth productivity or is it a biblical concept?

Right, well it's really interesting when you travel to different countries in the world you have a distinct impression that not all countries in the world have the same view of productivity and they don't have the same view of time. You can see in the buildings, you can see in the roads, you can see it in the infrastructure, and then technology. It's remarkable how different the whole view of productivity is, And that really does come down to a view of time. There's a different view of time. And I would just like to suggest that a culture of productivity is not just some American whim.

It's actually something that is a response to biblical truth, that God created us to be productive. We're all aware of the Dominion Mandate, where God makes it very clear that He wants His children to take dominion over everything, and that means that He wants them to improve everything, to take the things that God has given them and to improve on them, and to be a blessing to everything that is in their realm. And this is the whole matter of subduing the earth, to make the earth more useful. That's the essence of being fruitful and multiplying. In Christianity, we multiply things, we improve things, we subdue, and this is why after creation and the dominion mandate is given, what do you see?

You see cities, you see tools, you see musical instruments, you see the taking of dominion. And so productivity is not just an American cultural feature. It's something that is part of godly culture. There are many other ways that we can see the importance of productivity. For example, in Titus 2, 14, we learned that we were redeemed so that we would be zealous for good works.

We were redeemed in order to be zealous for good works. That has to do with productivity. In other words, we don't just allow things to stay as they are, we become zealous about things that cause improvements in various areas. The Lord Jesus Christ in John chapter 15 verse 16, He said that we didn't choose him, but he chose us. But why?

Why did he choose us so that we would bear fruit? That has to do with productivity. In John chapter 15 verse 8, you know, the Lord Jesus talks about this matter of fruit bearing, but he uses some words. Much fruit, more fruit. That's why productivity is critical, and that's why you see the productivity that you see in certain kinds of countries, because it's an application.

The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 6 says that if you sow bountifully, you'll reap bountifully, but if you sow sparingly, you'll reap sparingly. He's saying sow bountifully. He's not saying, well, you know, there are kind of two ways to go through this life. No, so bountifully. That's the whole Christian ethic.

I like what John Wesley said. He said, do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, in all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can. That's sort of the Christian ethic of productivity. Christians should not be content to just run the status quo, but to be always in a continuous improvement cycle in everything that God has given them. William Wilberforce spoke of this.

He said, you are everywhere commanded to be tender and sympathetic, diligent and useful. This has to do with usefulness. So no, productivity is not an American philosophical preference. It's a biblical requirement. So Scott, people who feel like they have a lot of room for growth in the category of time management know that this has a relationship to self-discipline.

Don't ask me how I know. Can you talk about what the Bible says about self-discipline? The problem with managing time is always a problem with ourselves. It's always a problem with self-government. And this is why we always struggle with it, because we always want to pamper ourselves rather than doing the greater good.

So self-discipline is absolutely critical. And that's why in 1 Timothy 4, Chapter 7, we get this language of discipline. He's talking about spiritual discipline here. He says, For bodily exercise profits little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and that which is to come." Here in this passage, he's making a comparison, physical exercise and spiritual exercise. And one is an example of another.

Disciplining in godliness is an example of discipline in physical things. We live in a world now where people are obsessed with exercise and physical fitness. It's really remarkable to see how it has been ramping over the last couple of decades, seeming to me like it's at a fever pitch. And I'm not against exercise, The Apostle Paul is not against exercise either. But what he's saying here in this passage is that the way that you think about exercise for physical things is the way that you should think about exercise for spiritual things and that applies to the way that we manage our time.

That we have to apply discipline to the management of our time. So we know how important it is that the gospel remains central. What does the gospel have to do with time management? There are several ways that the gospel is tied to time management. And the first is that the true Christian is a fruit-bearing Christian.

There's a return on the time. God actually is looking for a return on his time, and you learn that in the parables of the Lord Jesus Christ particularly, But fruit-bearing is an expression of the normal Christian life, and a Christian without fruit is not a Christian at all. And so that's the first thing. The gospel itself is a fruit-bearing good news. But the second is that we do have the Lord Jesus Christ who always did things well.

This is the heart of the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ's perfect obedience to his Father. The Lord Jesus Christ's perfect use of his time. He never governed a single second improperly. Jesus Christ never wasted a second.

He always was doing the will of his Father. He was always saying the words of his Father. He loved his Father and he only wanted to do the will of his Father. He said, not my will but thine be done. So in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the perfect example of someone who managed his time perfectly.

Remember when he said, I am working and my father is also working. The Lord Jesus Christ always did things according to schedule. He's not like us. We miss our deadlines, we mismanage our time, and all kinds of things like that, but the Lord Jesus Christ always did the will of his Father. And that's really good news.

Now the gospel, one aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that he never squandered his time. He always used it for the glory of God, but we don't. And so, His perfect use of time is imputed to us. And the very best of his ability to use every minute for the glory of God is laid upon us and our poor management of our time and the judgment that we deserve for misusing this precious gift has been laid on him. The Lord Jesus Christ took the punishment for our mismanagement of the glory of God in minutes and seconds and days and weeks and months and years.

So I think the gospel is clearly tied to the use of time because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Could I ask you about planning the use of time? So what do you think are the dangers associated with planning our use of time? Well the Bible makes it clear that planning is good, that you know when you build a house you count the cost. That has to do with planning.

And so there are many places in scripture where we know that that's a godly virtue. There is a danger that James chapter 4 verses 13 through 16 speak about. And James talks about a problem that we have, and that is that we make plans and then we become obsessed with our plans. And we boast about our plans. And when our plans don't work out, we're devastated.

James 4, 13 through 16 explains the problem that we can fall into. Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.

But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." And so this situation happens when we become obsessed with our own plans. And as a result, we get a little bit too wrapped up in our own plans, and we speak boastfully about what we're going to do, and then when it doesn't work out, then we're not very happy. This is the sin of presumption.

This is why Proverbs 27, one says, "'Do not boast about tomorrow, "'for you do not know what a day may bring.'" Or we might be like that fool that Jesus spoke of in Luke chapter 12 verse 20, where he hears these words, fool, your soul is required of you tonight. He built barns, he made all these great plans, but he did not know that God had a different plan. And I think the danger of planning is that we become too obsessed with our plan, and we don't recognize God's sovereignty to change a direction. And often people will go, they'll continue on a foolish plan or something that's completely unworkable because they've got too wrapped up in their plan and they didn't let God, you know, kind of change their direction. One of the dangers of planning is that we might miss the fact that God knows how to plan our lives better than we do.

You know, we might go in a direction, but God may want us to be going in a different direction. So that's a danger. Scott, what are the commands in Scripture regarding time? Well, there are many. I think one of the truly pivotal commands is in Ephesians chapter 5.

Therefore he says, Awake, you who sleep. Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. So there are a couple things in here. First of all, it's a call to wake up, okay?

But in verse 15 he says, walk circumspectly. In other words, walk very carefully. Be very careful about where you put your feet. To walk circumspectly is to watch the placement of your feet. I don't know if you've ever walked through a cow pasture before.

You don't want to walk through the cow pasture looking straight ahead. Well, if you do, you'll pay the price. But you walk circumspectly and you put your feet very carefully. So that's the first part. And then he says, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

The word redeeming is the word ex agorado, which means to buy back. To buy back. In other words, to buy up time. So this is a command. You look at the time that God has given, buy it up.

Buy it up for godly purposes. Purchase it. Pay a price. You'll pay up the price of your own life for it, really. And the Greek word that the Apostle Paul uses here for time is the term kairos.

Now there are two words for time in the Greek language. This word kairos doesn't refer to minutes and hours and days and years. It's not that kind of time. That's another Greek word, kronos, where we get our word chronology. Kronos is about minutes and hours and days.

But kairos, which is the word that's here in Ephesians 5, has to do with time periods, seasons of time, not minutes of time. And like for example, the time of harvest, that's kind of a season of time. Or There are appointed times, there are opportunities that you have. You know, there are different seasons of life that we have. There's this season when you're single.

There's this season maybe of infertility. It's a time frame. Or it's the time when you had cancer. He's talking about these times, these seasons of your life. You know, when you're a young father or you move into a new neighborhood, or you're having lunch with a friend, or you're in a car traveling.

There are seasons of time, sort of the historical moments, figuratively, of your life. And The idea is to make the most of every opportunity of your life, every kairos, every season of your life. This whole idea was communicated out of the mouth of Mordecai to Esther. In Esther chapter 4 we read this, for if you remain completely silent at this time, and in the Greek Septuagint this word kairos is used there, remain silent in this time Relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place. But you and your father's house will perish.

Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. So God requires that we redeem the time, that the moments of life that we are in, that we buy up that time for his glory. Scott, there are certain things that lead us right into the misuse of time. What are those things? Well, Ephesians 5 addresses it.

He says, redeem the time for the days are evil. The greatest enemy for the proper use of time is evil. So we, Because the days are evil, we have an obligation to seize it, to seize it from its slavery toward evil. To buy back the time out of the evil, unprofitable application. Time is squandered through sin.

Time is squandered by idolatry. Redeem the time for the days of evil. Redeem the time for the for they are days of idolatry. In other words, buy back the idolatrous times. Impurity.

Buy it back off of impurity. Get the time out of impurity and spend it for purity. Greed. You know, redeeming the time from greed, because redeeming the time for the days are evil. It's always evil that is trying to steal a proper use of time.

There are many expressions of unprofitable uses of time. We have to come to the place where we recognize there's light and darkness, there's good and evil, there's sheep and goats, and there is time that is redeemed and there's time that is unredeemed. And a Christian should say, What unredeemed time have I now? Let me inspect my use of time and find any unredeemed time and redeem it to buy it back for the days are evil. What does it look like when a person is misusing their time?

The Bible has many examples of this. Proverbs chapter 24, beginning in verse 30, speaks of it, where he says, I went by the field of the lazy man or the sluggard. I love that word sluggard. What a great word. You know when I was raising my children, Whenever I came across this passage I always made sure I used said the word sluggard in a certain way.

I went by the field of the sluggard and by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding and there it was all overgrown with thorns. Its surface was covered with nettles. Its stone wall was broken down. When I saw it, I considered it well. I looked on it and received instruction.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. So shall your poverty come like a prowler and your need like an iron man." So what does it look like when a person is misusing their time? They don't keep their things well. They're lazy in dealing with the physical things that God gives them. And he speaks of these things very clearly.

Here he gives very specific examples of an overgrown house and a place where things are broken. When someone is misusing their time, they are not taking care of the things that God has given them. That's one way that you know. Overvaluing resting is another way that people show themselves to be misusing their time. Proverbs 6-9 says, how long will you slumber, O sluggard?

When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler and your need like an arm man." I don't believe this is a passage that requires sleep deprivation. This has to do with someone who loves sleep so much, they don't love life enough to break down their sleep. And they don't have the joy and the vigor and the excitement to get on with the day, to take dominion.

They would rather just lay there. It's a lack of love for making progress, to rise and meet the day, to seize the day for productivity. But this is a person who would rather just lay there. Again, I don't believe he's talking about sleep deprivation. He's talking about a love for sleep and a lack of love for taking dominion over things.

So I think it's defined by laziness. Things are in disrepair. There's disorder. There are things that are unkempt. So when a Christian's thinking about how much of their time they're at liberty to allocate to things like a social life and entertainment.

How should we think about that? I like the way Jonathan Edwards spoke of it. He said this, some diversion is doubtless lawful, But Christians spend so much of their time, so many long evenings, in no other conversation than that which tends to divert and amuse. If nothing worse is a sinful way of spending time and tends to poverty of the soul at least if not outward poverty." So I think Edwards is speaking of the fact that there is a lawful use of casual conversation and things like that. But that's usually not our problem.

The problem of humanity is that it longs to be so entertained that it spends inordinate amounts of its life in just unprofitable relationships and conversations and activities. Let's talk about the rhythms of the day, patterns of days, and how that relates to time management. Well, God has arranged the world in a rhythmic way. There are times and seasons, and the sun rises every morning, and it sets in the evening. So there are these natural rhythms of life that God has invested in the world.

And I believe He's done that for the blessing of man, to give Him a way to work His way through His life. You know, this is perhaps why David in Psalm 143 8 said, let me hear your loving kindness in the morning, for I trust in you. Teach me the way in which I should go, for unto you I lift up my soul. That's a picture of a man in the morning. He's there in the morning and he's crying out to God and he's seeking the Lord and he's wanting to know which way to go.

So part of a person's spiritual discipline should be tied to these natural rhythmic processes. In Mark chapter 1 verse 35 we learn that the Lord Jesus Christ did this very same thing. He would often arise early in the morning. So Jesus was in the midst of a very busy life, but he used his mornings and the early mornings to seek the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ himself did this as a pattern.

We read in Isaiah chapter 50 verses 4 and 5, he says, The Lord has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to hear as the learned. Then he says, the Lord God opened my ear and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away. The Lord Jesus Christ sought wisdom from his father in the morning.

Every morning his father instructed him. His father spoke to him and then he in turn spoke to those who were weary. And he had a word in season for those who were weary. But these rhythms of morning and evening are critical when we think about the management of time. I like George Mueller's biography for a number of reasons, but he speaks of his own patterns.

Let me just read you a little bit about what he talks about regarding the morning. He says, the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was how I might get my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished." And he said, the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed, and that thus, while meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord, that my inner man might almost invariably be sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time I am then in a peaceful if not a happy state of heart and then he says this it is as plain to me as anything that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for the inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time except we take food.

And as this one of the first things we must do in the morning, so should it be with the inner man." So time management begins at the beginning of the day, that God would be the primary manager of your heart by turning to him first of all in the morning. So most of the time so far has been on specific texts of Scripture and establishing principles about the use of time. Now let's get really practical. Could you give us some of the practical things that you do to try to properly manage your time? Yeah, I've tried to apply all these things for a long, long time, and I say try because I'm still trying at it, but there are specific things that I try to do, that I want to do, that I think are applications of kind of the theological underpinnings we just laid.

And here are a few things that I just try to do. And I'm not saying these are the absolute perfect patterns that everybody should do, but these are just the things that I do. First of all, I do try to get a good sleep every night. I don't let myself sleep as long as I want, but I've tried to find the amount of sleep that I function best at. There have been times where I've cheated sleep, particularly as a young man.

I'm not cheating sleep as much now I still do every once in a while but I I don't want to be a person who is unwilling to seize the day for the glory of God so I want to I want to make the use of daylight hours but I want But I also want to receive the blessings of sleep. Secondly, I make lists. I write things down. I'm always writing things down. Right now I use my phone.

I used to carry a, for years I carried a day timer and I would write things down constantly and they were full of things and I would remember things. Number three, set goals. I'm always setting goals. I always have goals. Number four, I try to plan almost every hour before the day starts.

I want to know where I'm going in the day. Some days I do better than others, but most of the time I have it plotted out of what I want to do in the day and the time frame from which I want to do it. I want to do this from 9 o'clock to 10.30, I want to do this from 10.30 to 11, and I plot the day out. I think my day timer was arranged that way. I was a very young man.

In my teens, my pastor gave me a day timer, and I used it. I used it every day until I have transitioned to these electronic things, although I still do carry my daytime around every once in a while. Number five, allocate time. You've got to allocate time for things. I always allocate my time according to my most important priorities.

And I don't make decisions every day about the important things. I just do them. Like, for example, prayer, our prayer night. I don't decide on Wednesday afternoon whether I have enough time to go to prayer. It's in my schedule.

I'm going to do it. I just allocate time for the things that are really important. And I try not to very... I don't kick important things over the wall at the last minute because of something that has happened. Because what I found is that if I do that, I won't do anything important because there's always something, you know, biting at my heels.

There's always some problem. I'm behind on something. So if I don't put the big things in, then I don't do them. And they are fixed categories in my schedule. So I allocate time.

Number six, I use unallocated moments of time. If they show up, I try to maximize them. I always carry a book with me. I don't waste time. You know, if someone says, I'm so sorry I was late, I'm so sorry for wasting your time.

You didn't waste my time. You can't waste my time. Now that's probably an overstatement, but I wanna poise myself so that I can make progress in the areas that I'm working on. Number seven, prepare. I found that if I have a big project in the future, If I spend just a little bit of time two, three, or four months before, like if I spend 15 minutes on something that's going to happen a year from now, I have so many fewer problems when I get there.

And there's a lot less trouble and a lot less upheaval if I just spend a little bit of time way in the front end. And it just sets you free. Rather than waiting until you're at the last minute, spend a little bit of time, whether it's one month, two months, or sometimes it's 10 months or 12 months out. I find this especially true of conferences. If I have a conference in one year, if I spend 20 minutes or one hour a year ahead, it seems like it saves me 20 hours when I get closer to the event.

Number eight, I keep routines. I do believe that God ordered the world in a rhythmic way for a reason. Jonathan Edwards believed that as well. He said, the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead at sunup, and you should too. So get out of bed.

Go to bed early. I haven't done any statistical analysis on this, but the most successful people I've known, they go to bed early and they get up early. And you know, it's interesting, they keep their routines. Some of the wealthiest men I know, If I get in the car to go home at 5.30 or 6 o'clock and I call them up, they're also on the way home. These are men who have enormous responsibilities.

The reason is they keep routines And they're not jerked around by every little thing, and they keep their focus, and they do the big stuff. Number nine, prioritize. You can't do everything. There are certain things you just can't do in this life. Sometimes I wish I had five different lives.

I'd like to do so many different things. But you can only do a few things. So prioritize. Number 10, evaluate. I set time aside to evaluate, just to think.

Think about what I'm doing. Think about what is the effect and evaluate. If you don't ponder your business, your business will pummel you. And particularly for people who have companies, if you don't draw back and think about that business, you'll always be brutalized by it. And you'll never be able to really improve it.

But a lot of times people say, I just don't have time for that. Well, not having time for that means you're going to have a lot of time for getting beat up. Okay? Because your business is just going to wrap you right around its finger and jerk you around any way it wants to. And so I want to try to evaluate.

Number 11, I want to plan the day before it starts. Number 12, I want to control interruptions. That's really hard. Especially with the internet. That means that I might not answer every single phone call that comes in.

Because I won't get anything done. I am going to answer those phone calls. The question is to win. Number 13, take five. What I mean by that is if you're going to meet with someone, if I'm going to meet with someone or if I'm going to make a phone call, it works so much better if I just take a few minutes and say, Lord, what should be the outcome of this?

What is my most urgent prayer for this conversation, for this lunch, for this phone call? Take five. And that helps a lot. Number 14, leverage. I didn't make this up.

Somebody else has said this, and I believe it's true. 20% of your activity produces 80% of your effectiveness. So you better figure out what that is. What's the 20% that gives you 80% of your results? Like I found this thing I said about earlier, you know, 15 minutes or an hour invested six months in advance gives you enormous leverage when you get to the deadline.

Hey, 20% of your activity produces 80% of your results. And If you don't understand what that 20% is, you're not going to be managing your time as well as you could. Scott, I remember when I first got saved in the early 1980s, there was something circulated, I think it was Navigators or maybe IV who put it out, but it was called a tyranny of the urgent. Do you remember that? I never see them now.

They don't seem to be circulating now. The whole premise of it was that there are urgent things and there are important things. Usually, they're not the same. Usually, the urgent things aren't the important things, and the important things aren't nearly as urgent. And if you just allow yourself to move from urgent thing to urgent thing to urgent thing, the important things are the things that you can put off until tomorrow, and then tomorrow until...and then tomorrow, and you never get around the important things.

You're tyrannized by the urgent thing. A lot of the things that you've been saying reminded me of that pamphlet. We should put that back into circulation. I think it's in this library. Is it?

I'm sure it is. I've got one at home. Scott, how do you start your day? How do you go about getting a fast start to the day? Yeah, I'm a big advocate of having a fast start.

You want to snap out of bed knowing where you're going, okay? And I'm going to give you a list of seven things. Maybe you could put this under the category of how do you get out of bed and have a fast start and a productive day. Seven things. Number one, plan your day before you go to bed so that you have a vision for why you're getting up.

You lay back in that bed because you don't know why is the morning here anyway. Don't be in that position. Give reasons to yourself to arise in strength and create a case for the glory of God before the morning So that when the morning comes, that is what is on your mind. Seize the day, and so yeah, plan your day before you go to bed. So that when you first have some consciousness with that annoying ringing of the alarm, it will remind you who you are and how you might glorify God that day.

What good thing am I going to do now? Secondly, put your feet on the floor the moment you hear the alarm. Let me say that again. Put your feet on the floor the moment you hear the alarm. Delay his death.

If you delay, the sack monster is just going to put his arms around you and he'll be like a python and he'll hold you there. So the only way to beat the python is to put your feet on the ground and start walking. Never hit the snooze button unless you're sick. I do solemnly swear not to hit the snooze button in order to activate the python of the sack monster. You know, I had some really funny moments raising my children, particularly my son David, because we would get up early and I would go into his room and wake him up and I would say, put your feet on the floor.

And somehow miraculously the feet would not go on the floor. If you're having trouble getting out of bed, put the alarm clock across the room. And when the alarm goes off, put your feet on the floor immediately and don't delay. You've got to beat the sack monster because he'll grab you. Number four, after you get out of bed, brush your teeth.

Number five, make your soul happy in the wisdom of God from the Word of God. Be like the Lord Jesus Christ who said, I was there learning from my Father morning by morning. Number six, drink a big glass of water and go exercise. And number seven, seize the first 90 minutes of the day for your most undesirable project. And then continue to focus on the other stuff.

If you get that big, bad, ugly project that you've been procrastinating about forever, If you get that done, you feel so much better. Oh, you feel so much better. Go get it. Go get that thing you've been pushing off. Just sit down there and do it.

Spend the first, you know, 90 minutes of your day. I heard somewhere that people work most productively in 90-minute segments? I don't know. For most of my work life, I've tried to work in one-hour segments, but as I've gotten older, the 90-minute segment seems to work a little bit better. But don't despise what you can do in 10 or 15 minutes either.

Here's the deal. Habits create your life, and don't waste the rhythms. Don't waste the rhythms of breakfast and lunch and dinner. There's so much you can get done in the midst of those rhythms. You know, Daniel prayed three times a day as a result of the rhythms of life.

So how do you know if you're working on the right things or the wrong things? All I can say is that you better know. You better know because you don't want to be really efficient and productive in things that don't matter. So I think you have to solve that. You have to answer that question first.

What are the things that really matter? Am I doing the things that really matter? Is it possible to be too wrapped up in how you use your time? Can you be too picky about the use of your time? Yes, you can, but we need to recognize something about time.

And that is communicated by the Apostle Paul in Romans 14-10, where he says, for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue will confess. So then, each of us shall give account of himself to God." Whatever we do, it should be seen with that backdrop in mind that we must give an account. And I think we should recognize that fruit-bearing really matters. Jesus said, I'm the vine and you're the branches and he who abides in me bears much fruit.

For apart from me you can do nothing. That's really the secret of time management. Apart from me you can do nothing. It's really a very personal spiritual matter between you and the Lord that what you do arises out of His work in your life. I think that's how you keep from wasting your life.

You keep looking at Christ. Last question. So does God give us any guarantees about our time? God makes lots of promises. Well, for one thing, He's told us that our times are in His hands.

That's maybe the most comforting thing. Ecclesiastes 3 says that He makes all things beautiful in His time. And in that chapter, that beautiful chapter, to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, A time to gain and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to sew.

A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. What profit has the worker from that which he labors? I have seen the God-given task which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Also he has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from the beginning to the end. I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all of his labor. It is the gift of God. Time is a very unusual resource. It's not renewable.

You only have so much, and then it's gone, and you