A waste of time

For the past three days we have been out of town and it always amazes me how much time it takes to get from point A to point B here in the Philippines where the traffic is so unpredictable. Sometimes depending on the day and hour, a trip to the airport can be 30 minutes or three hours. Today coming back from Cebu took all day because the flight was delayed and it took three hours to get to our home from the airport so this is why we have to use drivers who so patiently fight the traffic and we are so thankful to them because while they are driving, we can read a book or take a much needed nap or answer emails which is what Daniel does, but let's not waste time.

Ah, yes, time.  The one thing we never seem to have enough of.  Days pass by so quickly that it feels impossible to get it all done.  And yet some days we go at a million miles an hour only to come to the end of the day and wonder what did we actually got done. 

If I have one big frustration in my life I think it would be that I never feel like I have enough time.  And I am horrible about keeping balance.  It is something I desperately want to improve about myself.

As I thought about that this past few days in Cebu I realized that there is absolutely nothing in this world I can do to make a day longer than 24 hours.  It is what it is.  So I can either feel frustrated by it and let it control me, or I can reset my thinking and start to view it in a different way.  And so I decided to do a reset.

I have 24 hours each day, so how am I going to use that time?  I made a list of the things I know I want to make time for each day and this is what I came up with:

Time for the Lord, time with my hubby, time to talk to the family, time to study, time for service, time for recreation, time for self. 

Then I decided to make a list for myself where I divided into those seven sections with each as a heading in its own box.  And this week I am going to do an experiment.  I am going to categorize my “to do” bullet items for the day into one of those seven sections where it would best each item fit.  Then I am going to see how many bullets I have in each section.  I think doing this will help me see whether I am achieving any level of balance in my life or not. 

 To achieve balance I should have items falling into each category.  To avoid getting out of balance I need to make sure that no one category is overloaded.  I have no idea how my experiment will go, but I feel like it may be a good start toward me trying to be better about achieving balance in my life and I feel good about at least making the effort. I genuinely want to take better control of the time in my life and I definitely want to live a more balanced life, where I make time for everything and everyone that is important to me.

“The direction in which we are moving is more important than where we are at the moment.” –Marvin J. Ashton

And so this coming week I am moving in the direction of making time for the things that matter and achieving better balance in my life and I will check it periodically. 

Con amor,

Vero