How Am I Using My Time?

This is prompted by an old post I ran across:
http://www.xanga.com/MrsCatherine/554917138/where-does-it-all-come-from.html

I find some of her comments really piercing, and they are ideas that I want to keep in mind as I go through my days.

For example, she observes that many times people

“complain about not having any time to do the things they need to in their homes” [and yet they may belong to dozens of online groups, subscribe to numerous online newsletters and blogs, etc.]

I know this has been an issue with me at times - I’d often rather play online than do what I know I should be doing, whether it’s housework, studying the Word, or even spending time with my husband. Sad but true.

As she questions

“What are we doing with our time?”

I’ve gotten much better about this - thinking about how exactly I’m spending my time, whether it’s online, or reading, or television watching. I’ve caught myself at silly websites and thought that I don’t want to waste half an hour playing around on that - there are more worthwhile sites I can visit with my computer time. I never had much of a TV habit, but I’ve become even more selective with what I’ll watch, knowing that I don’t want to find an evening has been frittered away on insignificant shows. I want to get maximum enjoyment out of any TV I do watch, so I have a couple of programs, and watch them after they’ve been recorded so commercials can be avoided.

I’ve always been a voracious reader, and used that as an excuse to read books that really aren’t that valuable or even enjoyable sometimes. My thinking was always that I can read really fast, so it doesn’t matter all that much. However, over the last year I’ve become much more selective about my reading, as it finally really sunk in that even at my reading speed there are way more books that I want to read than I’ll ever get to, so do I really want to spend my reading time on so much fluff?

My fiction reading has dropped dramatically, although I do still enjoy a limited amount. I read a lot more Christian Living / Spiritual Growth books, and I read the Bible daily. One of the most helpful ways for me to see the limits on what I can read is I set the book I plan to read for the month in one spot - and it makes it very clear that I have more books than I can even get through for several months (most are library books too - I am very blessed to have a great library system that I can take advantage of). I’ve already got September’s books in a stack, and plenty for October as well. I’ve been known to cull books from the to-be-read (TBR) pile when I realize that there are much higher priorities.

She also asks:

Do you spend your time being fruitful or do you waste it away on petty insignificant stuff[?]

Specifically she’s talking about physical clutter, but it also applies to how I spend my time, my money, my talents, my LIFE. I don’t want to waste my life, but instead make the most of all that I have. I want to hear “well done my good and faithful servant.” God’s given me 24 hours in my day. How am I using it?