How to Maximize Your Time

Hey there, you are watching or listening to the Sister Circle Podcast. I'm your host, Chrystal Evans Hurst. Sometimes you get me and a guest, a friend, a sister, or a brother who joins me on the podcast. Sometimes you just get me, and today is one of those days. So let's talk a little bit about how you cannot waste your time. So I emailed, sent an email a few weeks ago. And if you're not on my email list, you should be because I normally share all of the things with my email list first because there's too many things to keep up with. So I make sure that I put it all in there. But I shared recently that time is usually not my friend. I have to work really, really hard to be on time. It's not because I don't care about people's time. It's not because I don't move fast. I'm actually a pretty fast mover. It's not because I'm unaware of the time. Time just seems to get away from me. I think I'm fairly optimistic with time, and I always think that I can do more than what time will actually allow. I find myself stressed out all the time because I am rushing to a flight or rushing to get to church on time, or looking at my watch and saying, 'I can't believe that it's already such and such a time.' I have been struggling with time for as long as I can remember. My family assumes I'm going to be late. My daughter believes that I'm ADD. She said, because all of the things that you do in your life point to that. And one of the signs of people who have a million things going on and who have, um, who are able to operate at a high level is that they just don't have a good pulse on time. I hate struggling with time. And even when I try to set my alarm earlier or get up earlier or give myself more room, I still end up somehow thinking I have more time than I really do. It is a thing for my life, and I know it. It's just something I will always have to work on because I'm not naturally wired to leave large amounts of space for me to get things done, and I'm optimistic about what else I can do with my time. However, here's what I don't like. I don't like the feeling that I'm running late. I don't like the feeling that people are waiting on me. I don't like the feeling that the plane's gonna leave, or I hope to God I made it. I know that being late is not good for me because what it does in your physical system is that your adrenaline starts pumping pumping so that you can move faster. Your heart starts working harder. And if I'm pretty correct, then cortisol is probably flowing all throughout my core. And I know that those things aren't good for me, but yet and still, this is something I struggle with, even though I'm working to balance out and change some of the habits that I have to be a more on-time person. Running late and running out of time is a horrible feeling. It's horrible when it's time to go to church. It's horrible when it's time to get to work on time or make a meeting. It's horrible when I have to get my kids to practice. It's when I'm showing up for other people and don't want them waiting on me. It's a horrible feeling. And you know what else is a horrible feeling? That you are running out of time or wasting time in your life. If you turn 20 and couldn't believe you were 20 and where did my teenage years go, you know what I'm talking about. When you turned 30 and you thought, oh my gosh, am I really adulting right now, you know what I'm talking about. When you turn 40 and thought, good Lord Jesus, am I 40? How did this happen? You know what I'm talking about. If you turn 50 and thought, even if I live to be 100, I'm halfway through, and the likelihood is I probably won't live until I'm 100. You know what I'm talking about. If you are 60 or 70, 75, or even 80, you know what I'm talking about, because every stinking day is a gift and not promised. The truth of the matter is, every day, whether you're 20 or 80, is a gift, and it's a day that's not promised. And every one of us should be cognizant and careful with how we use our time. And we don't want to waste time. And if you start feeling like you're behind, if you start thinking that you're running out of time, if you start thinking that it's too late for you, guess what's going to happen? Fear. What's going to happen is adrenaline. What's going to happen every time you think about it is cortisol. What's going to happen is anxiety, because you're going to think, do I still have time in my life to do what God wants me to do? Can I even achieve what he meant for me to do? Is it too late for me to do what I'm supposed to be doing with my life? And you want to know how I know this is connecting with you right now? Because I have the hair standing up all on the back of my neck and standing up on my forearms. I have goosebumps all over me. The shivers are running up and down my spine. That's how I know I'm in the zone of what you need to hear today. Hey, so what I need you to understand Number 1 is you are not alone. Everybody feels like that at some point in their life because we, we all know that there is a day coming, a day where there's an impending reality where you're going to wonder, did I do what I was supposed to do? Did I do enough of what I was supposed to do? Did I get it done? Am I going to hear well done? When I'm gone, will the people say about me what I hope they say about me because I really meant to do this, that, or the other? Will I reach to the finish line? Would I get there on time? Will I get there whole? Am I going to be able to experience all the things in my life that I really decide or desire to experience? Listen, y'all, everybody feels this way. You are not unique. The feeling though is not supposed to set you into a zone of fear. This feeling is not supposed to put you into a zone of anxiety. This feeling is not supposed to make you, uh, um, walk around with cortisol and adrenaline running through your system. It's just a check point, a reminder to make sure you're looking at your life. That's it. Check in, pay attention. This means though you have to know what you want out of life. You, you have to know you. You have to know the soul that God gave you. You have to know how you're designed, what makes you happy. You have to know what gives you life, what makes you laugh, what makes you feel full. You don't have to know everything, but you do have to pay attention to what you do know and make space for that. So let me talk to you a little bit. Ephesians 5 says, be careful about how you walk. Don't walk unwise, walk wise. Make the most of your time because the days are evil. Don't be foolish, know what God's will is. So the first thing I want you to do is know that you need to marry the plans for your life with God's plan for your life. Now here's where people get all freaked out. What is God's will for my life? Oh my God, what do they want me to do with my life? How do I know God's— how do I know his purpose for my life? Stop freaking out. Stop freaking out. Let me tell you why. Most of us think God's purpose is somewhere way up here. Listen, his purpose for you today is to be kind to the dry cleaner person when you drop off your dry cleaning. We are making God's purpose bigger and more ostentatious and unachievable than what it really is. He trusts you with larger things because he can trust you with smaller things. How do you know? What God's will is for the smaller things, you gotta read the Bible. And some of these things are not that deep, y'all. It's not that deep. The Bible talks about loving your neighbor and being kind and speaking the truth in love. It talks about being a good steward of your money. It talks about being a good citizen. It talks about not being jealous and being patient. It's not a secret. It's not a secret. Talks about loving God with all of your heart, your mind, and your soul. And how can you love someone you don't know? It's very difficult to do that. So how do you get to know God? You got to read the love letter. That's what the Bible is. That's why in the Inner Circle for the second quarter, we're going to do a deep dive. But there are free resources everywhere, y'all, everywhere. There is absolutely no reason why you can't know for yourself how to know God. And then you'll know in very simple ways what he wants you to do. Do you want to know what God is looking for? God is looking for people who can be trusted. I tell my teenagers all the time, and I got one, my baby, my 5th child, unless I can convince my husband to, to get to let me have another one. I do it too, y'all. Y'all would— I would be the geriatric pregnancy. My Instagram would blow up with everybody trying to figure out what is this 50-year-old gonna do with this baby. But you want to know what? Janet did it! Janet did it! My last one is 14, um, and he's entered the zone of teenage years. I have a lot of practice with teenagers. I don't know why they think that I don't know what they're up to. So I gave him the talk and I said, listen, I have done and been most of the places you have been, and I have thought through most of the things you're going to think about doing. Let me tell you what the greatest thing that you can do for yourself is, sir. Keep my trust. You want my trust as you go through your teenage years. Trust me, son. And if I can't trust you to do the little things I ask you to do, there's no way when you're 16 you get to take the car and stay out till midnight. The things that you really want, that in your mind are the bigger things— can I go out on a date? Can I go out with my friends? Can I come in after midnight? Can I have a job? And you're using the car that I pay for— it has to do with, do I trust you? Do I trust you? And if you won't finish the dishes or clean the kitchen fully, if I have to call you back to fold your clothes, if you talk to your dad about one thing and then talk to me and hope we don't connect, which Sir, you just got here. We're smarter than you. You are whittling away when you do these things at the trust that I have for you. You're telling me who you are, okay? God is like, every day, honey, you are telling me who you are. So then the big things that you are dreaming of in life that you want my participation in, can I actually trust you with them? Are you obedient in the small things? Marry your plans with God's will. Offer yourself to God for his use. He created you. He put the soul of you in you, so he actually knows how to help you be you and best utilize your time. You also want to keep the end in mind. One day you will be 70. One day you will be 80. And I know if you're 27 right now— in fact, if you're a millennial or a Gen Zer, go ahead and give me a fist bump in the chat because I'd like to know you're here. I like to know who I'm talking to. It feels like it's going to take forever to get there. I know it does. I know it thinks that the next season is so far away. Every single person I know, every single person I know— let me say this again— every single person I know who is 70 or older, and I know many, every stinking single one of them, regardless of how well or how poorly they've lived their life, they say the same thing: it has gone by so fast. I was just 18 the other day. It seemed like every season was slow, But here I am. It was the ride of my life, and I can't believe it's almost over. The days are long. This is what we tell young mothers with young children. The days are long, but the years are short. If you are 27, you have no kids, you live in your best life, honey, you are going to be 47 before you know it. And whatever is in your heart to do, whatever God has placed in your heart to do, what are you waiting on to do it? If you're supposed to travel abroad, travel abroad. If you're supposed to host people in your home, host people in your home. If you're supposed to, uh, go back to school, what are you waiting on? Because the things that the world is going to tell you you're supposed to do with your time, and how the, the world is going to communicate to you that there are all these ways for you to waste your time— listen, let me tell you something, you will be 87 before you know it. So how do you not waste your time? You have to marry your plans for your life with God's will for you— life— your life. How do you know what God's will is? You have to read the letter he wrote you. It's the instruction manual. What if you can't understand it? Well, there's a million resources out in the world to help you. You have no excuse. But here's the thing: God gave you the gift of life. He didn't do that by accident. He meant you to use the life that he gave you, and he is willing partner with you in giving you guidance. But before you start looking for the big thing— Lord Jesus, who am I supposed to marry? Where am I supposed to move? What job am I supposed to take? Do you want me to do this or do that? How am I going to reach my goals?— he's like, can you just be kind to the person who lives next door to you? Can you? I mean, you know, listen, y'all, one day I was having a bad day. I was in my 20s. I went and dropped something off at the dry cleaner. This person was also having a bad day. They were making my life harder than it needed to be. I was not having— I was running late for work, y'all. They said something to me they shouldn't have said, and let me just say, I did the same thing back, okay? And I don't even like regularly cuss, but I sure did do it that day. Let me tell you something, that day I left the dry cleaner and went to work And the conviction of the Holy Spirit sat on me. Do you hear me? Sat on me. So at the end of the work day, I got back in my car, I went back to that dry cleaner. My clothes weren't back, y'all. I didn't go back to pick up my clothes. I went back to the cleaner and I looked at that person and I said— they said, your clothes aren't here yet. They're really snarky. Your clothes aren't here yet. I said, I know. I came back to apologize to you. The way I spoke to you this morning was unnecessary and out of character. Um, you are worthy of my best communication even if I don't know you, and I apologize to you for the language that I use with you this morning. Listen, Deidre said, you just match that person's energy. Yeah, but see, that's the thing. We serve a God who didn't match energy. He didn't match energy. Jesus didn't match energy. So we walking around out here in these streets and everybody's like, match energy. That ain't God's will for you. That ain't God's will for you. You got to stop listening to what everybody else is telling you about how you can live your life and start asking the person who gave you life so you align your life with his will in the small things. If you're out of alignment, your life will be bumpy. We all know this. When your car is out of alignment, your life will be bumpy. It won't drive right. And if your life is bumpy, you need to ask yourself, are you in alignment? Living out your God-given design is the best way to maximize your time. Even if it feels like time is moving slow, trust me, trust me, God causes all things to work together. And you never know with the time he's given you how you are maximizing time because of what he is teaching you that you will need later. Number 2, Number 1, marry your plans with God's will. Be obedient in the small things. Number 2, minimize distractions. Y'all, we are distracted right now. You are distracted. My hope is that this distraction adds to your life, okay? My hope is that this distraction adds to your life, but you need to minimize distractions and investigate how you spend time. Nowadays you don't have any reason to not pay attention to your time. Your phones will tell you how much time you've been on your phone. Your phones will tell you what apps you were using. Okay, we have this tool that I've shared before, um, it's always available inside of the Inner Circle for our 90 days called Manage Your Minutes, and you budget out your time. Where is your time going? Because most of us have more time than what we're actually using. We have more time than what we're actually using. And when we say we don't have time, that's a lie. Let me tell you what the enemy wants you to believe: you don't have time. That you don't have enough. He is a— he's an expert at helping you to walk in a poverty mindset about your money, about God's will for your life, about your time. You don't have enough, so what do you do is you start feeling anxious. But one of the ways he also steals is by stealing your time with distractions. So you have to be intentional with what you are going to do and what's non-negotiable in your life. You want to know what's non-negotiable for me in my life? What's non-negotiable for me is reading God's word. What's non-negotiable for me is being with my family. What's non-negotiable for me is getting enough sleep. What's non-negotiable for me is growing and maximizing the gift of me in this world. It's non-negotiable. So knowing what God's will is for me means I have to look at the things that are stealing my time, because everything is not neutral. It's not neutral. Uh, one of the things my sister said this weekend, one of the illustrations she gave is she was going up an escalator and her son thought it would be fun to go up the escalator by going up the down escalator. So he's having to run faster to go up because the escalator is moving down. Let me tell you something, time is winding down every day. Every minute of every day you are losing time. So if you are not intentional about moving through your time you're just going to be losing time. It's not, it's not a zero-sum game. You have to decide to use your time without distraction, because if you stand still in a way that God has not asked you to stand still, you will be losing the time that he gave you. So your devices are a big thing. TV is a big thing. Your eyes and what you satiate yourself is a big thing. Um, the senses of your body— what are you going to that makes your eyes happy, your ears happy, your skin happy? What, what makes your ears happy? What are these things that steal your time? Those are things that will attract you to the world, which you will not be in forever, and they will waste your time for eternity, where you will actually be forever. You want to be intentional with your minutes. You want to break the cycle. What cycles? The cycle of shame that steals your past. The cycle of needing validation from other people that keeps you in living other people's desires for you. A cycle of overwhelm where you never have enough time, so you're always confused, stressed out, and lacking clarity. Uh, a cycle of, uh, work and business that keeps you running harder and faster for goals that God never gave you. A cycle of lacking boundaries where you are constantly being encroached upon by everyone else and everything else that has nothing to do with your design in this world. You have to be the protector and the guardian of your time. You have to be present in the seasons that God has given you. How do you not waste your time? By looking around at what is wasting your time and doing less of that. You got to do less of that. If you traded every minute you spent on social media and TV for reading a book, you'd move your life forward. If you traded the time that you wasted in that relationship, knowing good and well you shouldn't have been with him, but yet every Friday night y'all were chilling and Netflixing and all the things, and you could have been doing something else with your life, building other meaningful relationships. But because you were so afraid to be by yourself, you allowed that guy— or allowing I feel that in my spirit this morning. You're allowing someone to steal your months and your weeks and your years just because it's like a teddy bear and you're afraid to be by yourself. Girl, let that man go. Let him go. Let him go. Minimize distractions, whether those be people, projects, social media, whether it be addictions. Do whatever it takes to break the cycle, break your addiction, break the habits that keep you in a distraction-oriented life. Your minutes, your time is the most precious thing you have. Be present. What will last beyond you? What eternal impact are the things that you're spending your time doing— what are they going to have? Because every day you are choosing what kind of impact you're going to leave. Now, I don't need this to stress you out. You don't have to be a preacher. To leave an internal impact. If you go to work with people every day and you don't know their last name, you don't know anything about their family, but y'all sit there every day and you don't know if they need prayer, you don't know if they need Jesus, you don't know if they need a kind word. Maybe the eternal impact is just getting to know on a lunch break the people who you work with instead of going into your car on your lunch break and scrolling through Instagram. It could be that simple. That simple. Okay, y'all, you can't backwards engineer your time. So marry your plans with God's will, minimize distractions, get rid of the things or do less of the things that don't matter. And number 3, you got to make a move. You got to make a move. I know that you want to wait on things to be perfect, but you got to make a move. I know you want to wait until you have all the answers, but you got to make a move. I know that you're afraid because the last time you you made a move, things didn't turn out. It doesn't matter what happened yesterday. Today you have to make a move. The only thing standing between the life you have and the life you want is you choosing to live it. And I know you may not have all the answers, and I know that you may not have all the money, and I know you may not even have the time, but you do something. You don't wait for the complete picture. You don't wait until you have all of your ducks in a row. You don't wait until everything is lining up just the way you wanted it, because it takes so much longer in life for things to line up the way you think they need to line up. You have to risk failure if the time is now. How do you know the time is now? You just feel like it's time to go. You can't shake it. You right now have goosebumps going up and down your spine because you have something in your life that you should have done last week or last year or before COVID and you still haven't done it. That thing— I don't know who I'm talking to, but I feel it right now— that thing, it was yesterday for you to do, which means today you don't have time to waste. The only thing standing in between you and the life you're supposed to live is you living it Don't wait. Now, there are times where wisdom does say wait, but sometimes, y'all, the only thing you're waiting on is you to be ready, to be right, to have low fear. And failure, if nothing else, is how you learn. You don't wait for the day when you have the perfect house, you have the perfect living room set, or you have the ideal situation. You do well with what you have. You do it afraid. Right now, I'm going to California in October of 2023. I have mixed feelings about that, but I know it's time to go. It's a lot. It's expensive to take your whole team to California and hope, hope that enough people will sign up to make sure you don't end up in the red. Mm-hmm. Right now I've got hiring decisions to make and listen, you want to get the right people in the door and I've been sitting there thinking, writing pros and cons and going back and forth. Sometimes it's just time to go. My grandmother told me when I was contemplating marrying my husband, she said, listen, you got to grab them by the front because once they get past you, you can't— there's no, there's no beard to grab them from the back. What she was saying is you are walking in fear and there's absolutely no reason why this should not be your husband. He's got a beard in the front, you can grab him from the front end. Once he's past you, there's no beard that grows in the back. And some moments, not out of fear but out of a settled knowledge, if you don't move forward when you have the inkling to do so based on wisdom, based on God's word, and based on what he's put in you, you miss the moment. Now God can redeem, but I don't want you to miss moments unnecessarily. Just like Dory was told over and over again in Nemo, just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. I had the opportunity to preview the George Foreman movie. My dad interviewed George Foreman, and it's exciting to see that. But he's got a movie coming out. And of course, you know, I don't know that I'd pay that much to George Foreman. I just know about the George Foreman grills. But I watched the story of his life. And after being in the ring as a young man, he came back to the ring as an older man, definitely way too old. And his coach in the corner kept saying, George, what are you doing? What are you doing? You got to do this, you got to do that. George told his coach, I'm gonna do this my way, I'm gonna do this my way. And he ended up in his latter years having a knockout, doing it his way, in God's timing, bringing him back to something that he thought he was done with. Listen, it's never too late. That's what I want to say. It's never too late for you to do what you were supposed to do 20 years ago. Maybe not the way you intended to do it, but the way it's still in your heart to do. Let regret fuel you, not confine you. So sometimes all it takes for you to get the ball moving in your life is taking the first step. So, and I know many women who are in the Inner Circle get this, the 90-day goal was to get back to school, but the first step was just download the catalog or go look at the degrees or make the appointment with the counselor. I know that for some people it was, I gotta lose 50 pounds, but the first step was getting rid of the soda in their house. I know that for some people it was getting closer to God, but the first step was getting up a little earlier or staying up a little later so they had the time to commit. I know some people are like, I want to read more, but the first thing was they had to make a trip to Barnes Noble or go on Amazon to choose a book. There's always a first step, but that first domino, y'all, when it falls, it pushes other dominoes forward. So stop despising small things. Zechariah 4:10 tells us, don't Despise the day of small beginnings. What do you do when you want to make a move in your life, minimize distractions, maximize your time, and marry your plans with God's will? You do one thing, one thing, one thing. That's it. One first step. So go ahead and let me know in the comments while I'm live, and if you watch this after, then tell me in the comments after What is your first step? What is the one thing, the one thing, the one thing that if you need to move the needle in your life, what is one thing, the first domino that hopefully will get the other dominoes moving? Because all you need to do in your life to not waste time is move, move. What is blocking your movement? What time blocks do you recognize in your own life? How do you need to be more efficient with your time? How do you need to marry your plans with God's will for your life? How do you need to get rid of distractions? But the main thing I want you to ask me— answer me is, what's the first domino? So whether it is marrying your plans with God's will, minimizing distractions, making a move, what is the one thing, the first domino? So your assignment, your call to action today, is to employ one of the ways that you need to be more efficient with your time. From the questions I've asked you: what's the first domino? What's the first step? What are the time blocks? What are the distractions? How can you marry your plans with God's will for you? How can you get to know him better and obey in small things? And employ one of those things so that you can move the needle in your life and do one thing this week that says you agree with God that your time is precious, and then just keep doing that every week. If you look at the chat, you'll realize you're not alone. You're not the only person who is thinking the thoughts that you're thinking or having the concerns that you're having. But what will separate those who live past regret and those who live in regret are those who make the decision to do something. How do you get out of the feeling that you're running out of time? You pay attention to the life that you have. You pay attention to the God who gave it. You pay attention to the distractions that the enemy is bringing in, and you pay attention to where you need to make a move. And then, y'all, you just do the thing. I hope this has been encouraging to you. This is your life. Choose to live. All right, y'all, see you later.