Time Management is Mostly about Priority Management

For all the points of the compass, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure.
(from the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead)

The game clock for basketball shows the time remaining in tenths of a second as each quarter comes to an end. The "Tucker Rule" states that no less than 3/10 of a second must come off of the clock for any in-bounds pass. Tenths of second! I can barely tap my desktop 10 times in a second! We are a very time-oriented culture. I remember rewriting software in order to shave off milliseconds of execution time.

Other cultures are more event-oriented than time-oriented, meaning that events start when the people involved arrive, not when the clock says so. One of the adjustments missionaries need to make when they live in these cultures is putting aside our Western view of time, learning to live in an event-oriented culture.

We are also a harried, overbusy culture, for the most part. Our smartphone reminders boss us around, telling us where to go when (even given us directions on getting there). "Time management" is a hot topic - there is no lack of literature, websites, and software tools designed to help you manage time - for a fee. Basketball teams need to learn to "work the clock" as time expires. Football games are won and lost on "clock management."

And we feel as though we have too little time for all the things we "must" do.

To say that "I don't have enough time for all the things I need to do" is very close to saying, "God has not given me enough time." Or worse, "God has not given me enough time to do His will." God has not given us infinite time (here), but neither has He given us too little time. He never gives us too little to do His will.

Rather than being time-oriented (which is my nature) or event-oriented (which drives me batty), I'm trying to become more priority-oriented. It starts with the view that God has given me a limited amount of time on purpose, and that He's given me exactly the right amount of time. So, I always have enough time to do His will. But I never have enough time to do all the things I would put on my list.

Given the knowledge that God has given me enough time, now I address the things before me based on priorities. "Priority" is not only determined by the absolute priority of the task, but how important it is to do it soon (which is slightly different than "urgency," found in some literature). Priority is also determined by the value I believe God puts on it, not me. I try to busy myself with what is priority, until my priority is to stop and rest. That way, I'm always about what's most important at the time. (It also frees me to ignore my phone when I'm talking to someone in person - the person in front of me is my priority, not the phone - which, by the way, is very good at taking messages for me.)

This also means that whatever does not get done is OK. Maybe it will become a higher priority later, and then it will get done. Or, it was never priority enough to get done in the first place. I cannot do more than be busy about priorities, and I try not to feel guilty about the things that were never priority enough to do. There will always be things that don't get done. As long as I don't ignore the priority items because I'm busy doing low-priority items, I feel like I'll generally be doing the things God gave me the time to do.

I'm by no means consistent in this thinking, but the more I adopt it, the better I sleep at night - even though my todo list wasn't completed.

Time management is mostly about priority management.