Time is Money???

I clearly remember this one particular summer morning when I was about 9 years old. I was playing a game with my sister while we were watching the Price is Right and I looked at the VCR quickly to see what time it was. When I looked, I watched the clock change to the next minute and for the first time, the thought occurred to me, "It will never be 11:38 AM on this date ever again." I was shocked at the revelation and a little sad that I could never have it back . . . and then I saw that they were playing Plinko next and I was over my profundity.

This morning, I was recognizing the fact that I have a problem with time management. The severity may ebb and flow with seasons, but I don't seem to be able to rest well or work well because I'm always feeling like there's more to do, there's time passing, and I'm drowning in the midst of it all. I felt like I got an idea about a way to help me with this, however, and it's either a God ordained moment of brilliance or a lapse of stupidity brought on by the lack of sleep. I'm not sure which one yet.

I was recognizing that if time were measured in an actual, material currency, I would probably find myself at the end of each day with a trashcan full of crumpled up bills of time currency, wasted in small 5, 15, or 30 minute increments throughout the day without ever realizing it. Too often, I allow myself to adopt a reactive mentality to my schedule, spending an incredible amount of time on e-mails, phone calls, random conversations, and other things that I never planned on doing at the start of a day. The proverbial "tyranny of the urgent" overwhelms the completion of the more important items of my day, and if I do ever take a few minutes to think about the gift of every minute in a day, like I briefly did on that morning so long ago, I see that I'm not using that gift in a way that best glorifies God.

Whereas I try to be very conscientious and responsible in stewarding my money with wisdom, I realized that when it comes to spending time, I'm not nearly as careful in my transactions. (Now here's where it gets a little crazy.) In the same way that I had to spend some time sitting down, figuring out a monetary budget, and then training myself to spend my money wisely, what if I were able to create a time budget, complete with a physical time currency that I held each day to remind me of the finite amount of time that I have to spend each day, and how important it is to spend it wisely? I want to call my currency "chronos." 1 chronos=10 minutes. That way I have 144 chronos to spend on each day; none can be left over. None can be saved. It will also give me a really clear picture of what I really value as the more chronos I spend on something, the more I value it. By practicing the physical spending of chronos for a few weeks, perhaps I can teach myself enough discipline and time management skills to make a permanent change in my behavior. Thoughts? Suggestions on how you steward your time in a Godly fashion?