Time Management

I went to Amazon.com today and in the Books section did a search for "time management." There were over 75,000 results!! Meanwhile, a search for "money management" yields just under 27,000 results. Amazing, when you consider that while there are many different levels of monetary wealth, we all have exactly the same amount of time each day. But the pressure to make the most of that time is relentless--hence the need for 75,000 books.

Living in the Present Tense, of course, isn't exactly about time management. You can use any of those 75,000 methods you want to manage your daily affairs. What present tense living is about is how we view time. We are trying to remove the pressure to maximize every minute, both today and forevermore, and instead live in the present tense: enjoy each moment, each day, one day at a time. Yes, some of those days will be filled with activities; hopefully some of them will be less crowded with appointments; but all of them are opportunities to serve God and others with our activities and presence.

I hope in learning to live in the present tense you'll discover ways to identify and relish those opportunities.

Four Hour Work Week

Present Tense living is about more than just time management, of course, but very often, as one considers new priorities and begins to think about how to get control of one's time, it is impossible not to think about being more efficient in our day-to-day tasks.

The Four Hour Work Week, a recent book by Tim Ferriss, offers some radical thoughts and bold suggestions for getting control of your time. Even if you can't adopt all of his suggestions in your daily life, they offer food for serious thought about how you manage email, what activities you spend your time on, and how you might be able to cut back on what you do. It's good stuff.

Here's an interview with Tim in today's Daily Telegraph in which he summarizes his ideas. This article from last fall gives a good overview of his principles.

(Class preview: In session 3, I'll give some homework taken from this book!)

Welcome Journeys Class!

For the next four weeks I'll be teaching the Present Tense lessons to the Journeys Sunday School class, so welcome to the blog if you're in that class. Feel free to use the archive at right to look around--you can see the handouts for each class session filled in in case you missed something.

The purpose of the blog is to continue the Sunday conversation throughout the week by highlighting time issues that appear in the media. Feel free to comment on any post you find interesting, and I hope you find this blog helps solidify in your mind the ideas we discuss in class.

Hope you find it "worth" your time!