"A technique that could save hours of your time is learning to read a book like you read a newspaper. When you look at a paper, you don’t read every obituary, classified ad and legal notice because they aren’t relevant to you. Rather, you hit the highlights by scanning the headlines and stopping on the parts that are most interesting or most important to you.
You can take the same approach to reading a book. Make it a habit to quickly scan a book before reading it. Then, purpose to read only those parts that are most meaningful. Often a writer will put their best material in the first and last chapters of a book and have lots of filler in between.
One book where this doesn’t always apply however is the Bible. God said, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable.” While some parts may be easier to apply than others, we eventually want to read it all.
Remember, making the most of your reading time is redeeming the time.
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"Perhaps you heard about the dieter who rationalized it would be OK to eat broken cookies because all the calories would have leaked out.
It’s easy to rationalize what we really want to do. And that’s one reason so many people procrastinate on doing God’s will. Procrastination and rationalization go hand in hand. The procrastinator knows what he’s supposed to be doing, he just rationalizes or creates reasons why he can’t do whatever it is he’s supposed to do.
Rationalization is when I tell myself a little lie in order to justify my behavior. It is when I ignore the consequences of my actions so I can continue doing the thing God has told me not to do. Procrastination and rationalization are great thieves of our time. If we’re to be effective Christians, we must learn how to act immediately on the truth God reveals to us.
Is there some behavior you’re rationalizing away right now? Confront it today and redeem the time.
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"Someone noted the problem with being in the rat race is that even if you do win, you’re still a rat.
It’s true. Probably one of the greatest wastes of time imaginable is to spend a lifetime doing a job you don’t enjoy and from which you see no spiritual fruit. Yet multitudes continue year after year with unsatisfying work because of “job security.”
Next to sleeping, you will probably spend more time at work than with any other single activity. That’s why Christians have to make career choices based on factors other than simply “job security.”
God has given you a specific set of talents, abilities and spiritual gifts. When you discover what these are and begin to put them to use, you’ll find the right work can at times even give you energy instead of taking it from you. I’ve had the experience of returning from speaking at a convention with more energy than when I left because fulfilling your calling is an exciting way of redeeming the time.
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"Occasionally, when I am introduced to speak, the pastor or convention host will refer to me as Dr. Rick Grubbs. When that happens, I might not always correct them because I don’t want to embarrass my host, and because it does sound nice. But the truth is, I’m not a Dr. I’m not even a nurse. I’m not even qualified to cure a ham.
Qualifications are important. And one thing we all need to qualify is our goals. Setting goals is one of the most important steps to good time management. But a vital part of goal setting that is often overlooked is asking, “Why do I want to achieve this goal?”
Try writing out your goals by drawing a line down the middle of a paper. List each goal on the left. Then put why you want to do it on the right. Clarifying if a goal is for God or for self will reveal which ones will redeem the time.
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