SimplifySample

From Overscheduled to Organized—Harnessing Your Calendar’s Power

“I’m overscheduled.”

“I don’t have time.”

“I’m too busy.”

I hear it from the guy next to me on the airplane and from the people I talk to at church. I hear it from friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Sometimes I hear it from my own lips. We say these words so often that we become immune to how repetitive we sound. Our schedules are packed so tight, we couldn’t slip a razor blade between appointments. We have no wiggle room, no margin, not a moment to spare—let alone an hour, a day, or a week.

We almost brag about it, don’t we? It makes us feel a little important: I am much too busy to do such and such. No time. More pressing commitments. It feeds something unhealthy in us—and the cost is severe.

What would it look like to seek God’s Kingdom first in your life, as Jesus calls us to do in today’s Scripture reading? To begin with, take a look at your calendar. A runaway calendar will keep you from simplifying your life. It holds you hostage to tangible things—meetings, appointments, and projects—without giving proper priority to the intangibles: who you are becoming, your relationships with family and friends, your connectedness to God. Without conscious intervention, this pattern of chronically over-scheduling ensures that the priorities you care about most will take a backseat to the urgent priorities of others every time.

One way you can start is by redrafting your schedule and filling it up the way God would fill it if He were in charge of your time, your schedule, your calendar. If you put God first—if you start by plugging in the time slots on your calendar that determine who you want to become—and then fill in everything else around it, you’ll gradually become the kind of person you want to be.

Question for reflection: How would God have you spend your time today?