Get Rid of the Pesky Time Stealers In Your Life! 1. Take an honest look at how you spend your time 2. List your time-stealers. 3. Clearly distinguish between rest and relaxation (we all need it!) and bad habits 4. If possible, once you put a face on your time stealer, reduce or completely eliminate it for seven days or longer. 5. When you finish the "to-do's" of your day, reward yourself! Rather than cramming in more tasks, use the free moments to enjoy things that you love or need, like: Sit in the floor and play with your child. Talk to your teen. Take a ten-minute walk. If you have children, ask them to walk with you and check out the sights together. Ask your husband to give you a back rub or surprise him and give him one! Take a bubble bath and read a chapter of a good novel 6. Recognize every moment as a possibility. Visit Suzie's Web site

TIME MANAGEMENT

Time Stealers

By T. Suzanne Eller
Guest Writer

CBN.com – Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future. I hummed the lyrics to this seventies song as I attempted to finish a chapter of my new book. I was slightly behind schedule and felt the pressure of a looming deadline.

I glanced at the laundered clothes stacked on our bed. My house was clean, sort of. Like a rook in a chess game, I moved clutter from room to room and chair to chair, always staying one step ahead of an outright mess.

A small voice of discontentment nagged at me and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. One day I sat in front of my TV munching kettle corn and without warning God interrupted my vision of Judge Judy hammering a hapless defendant. He whispered his own verdict as I realized that I had allowed some bad habits to slip into my life.

I tried to defend myself. Like a perky realtor, I dragged God from room to room in my life trying to persuade him that I was the epitome of efficiency. Unfortunately, just as annoying as it is when you move your refrigerator to let the repairman get to the plumbing, my tour revealed a lot of goo that had accumulated in the corners and nooks of my day. I finally confessed that I had allowed time stealers to rob me and create disorganization in my life.

As I knelt in prayer, I let God direct the tour this time.

I operated at a spastic level -- writing for 30 minutes, playing computer games for 30 minutes, throwing a load of laundry in the washer, watching a half hour of TV, then writing for another half hour. I had convinced myself that I had so much to do that I would never catch up. Having three kids in college at the same time meant that there was a ream of financial aid paperwork to complete each year. I speak to teens and women and travel. I teach a Discipleship class for teens every Sunday morning and volunteer as a youth staff member. But an honest examination showed me that these were all things that I loved.

They weren't the problem. It was the time stealers that had crept into my day that caused my time to slip, slip away.

I talked with some of my friends and quickly discovered that I was not alone. Though our schedules and family situations varied greatly and we were in different seasons of our lives, we all knew what it was to struggle with the issue of time. The deeper we traveled in our conversation, we discovered that many of us were challenged with time stealers.

Overcommitment

One friend, Kathryn Lay, a working mother, confessed that over-commitment used to rob her of valuable family time. "I used to say yes to so many things," she said, "and then I decided to do something about it." Kathryn marked one day each month on her calendar as a family day and then planned an all-day or overnight trip that had nothing to do with work, school, or ministry. Phones and e-mail were banned. Today, their monthly family day is a treasured tradition. "We might take photos or just enjoy nature or visit antique shops," she says. "Our goal is just to have fun and relax."

Kathryn can look through the stacks of photos of her family trips and see the value of the time devoted to her family. She says she learned a valuable lesson as she traipsed through shops and parks. "I don't have to say yes to everything, and I don't have to be a part of leadership of everything," she said. For Kathryn Lay, learning to say no reclaimed precious family time.

Television

Another friend, RaNaile Nickell, is a single working mom who commutes two hours each day to work. She shared that television was a major time stealer for her. "I'm not into the Word," she confessed. "At least, not like I want to be. I realize that I'm not receiving what I need for wherever God wants to take me next. I want more than that."

Another friend, Louise, shared her solution. She taped one or two of her favorite shows. "I watch them on Saturday morning," she said. "My children are older and sleep in, so I get up early and walk and then I snuggle in with a café latte and watch my shows." This eliminated the habit of watching several shows in a row. Also, knowing that she would have down time later in the week motivated Louise to spend the couple of hours she had each night with either her family or doing activities that she loved.

E-mail

Technology, touted to make our lives simpler, was a chief time stealer among the women. Brandy Brow started two online support groups as a ministry and they quickly consumed chunks of her time. She found herself stopping to respond to "just one more e-mail" and before she knew it, other things were pushed to the side. Brandy decided to combat this time-stealer by reserving a specific time each day to read and respond to e-mail. "Since I've instituted this self-ban, my priorities have straightened out tremendously," she says.

Computer Games

I felt silly admitting that playing computer games was my biggest time-stealer. It started out as a diversion. I had begun to stay up a few minutes longer than I should have to play "one more" game instead of going to bed. I had to admit that computer games stole at least an hour of valuable time each day. It kept me from writing. It pulled at me to remain in front of a blinking, impersonal computer when a live, warm, much-loved husband was nearby.

What Now?

The more we talked, the more I realized how distracted I had become by all of this. A friend of mine calls this "hummingbird head" syndrome, flitting from one activity to the next but accomplishing little.

After our discussion, I decided to tackle this problem head on. The first step was completed. I had put a face on my time stealers.

Step two was to list my losses: Time stealers blurred my focus. They distorted the reality of the time I had each day to fulfill God's purpose for my life. All the times that I said, "I have no time," I was spinning away precious moments.

I was ready to tackle these pesky time stealers. Checking my e-mail at a certain hour was a perfect solution. I realized within a couple of days that most of the e-mails I received could be handled by checking them early in the morning and then again at night.

Turning off the television wasn't such a big deal. But when it came to computer games, I quickly learned that we don't know how entrenched a habit is until we cut it out of our life.

I decided to fast my time stealers. Instead of giving up food, I would eliminate things that robbed precious moments for thirty days. I would check my e-mail only twice a day.

Was it easy? No, but as the fast dwindled down, I looked at what I had gained. I had reclaimed seven hours a week simply by eliminating one silly spades computer game.

I rediscovered pockets of precious moments. I spent a portion of my morning reading my Bible and talking with my Savior-instead of running to check e-mail. I took long walks with my husband in the evening or worked outside with our horses -- instead of playing spades or watching television. At the end of the day, my writing projects were complete. I no longer used the phrases "too much to do" or "not enough time".

I came to the conclusion that God had more for me -- not a legalistic list of tasks to perform, but a new way of thinking. The hours of my day were opportunities. Each moment was a possibility. It is evident that Nathaniel Emmons had shared a truth when he said, "A habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters."

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