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Thursday, February 28, 2013

Distraction Management

The subject of Time Management comes up frequently in our household. My husband works rotating shifts. My son is homeschooled, but attends outside classes 3 days a week. I have a plethora of little projects that I juggle. We each have different schedules, a different pace, and different times of the day when we are most alert. Most days, I feel like I’m managing a three-ring circus.

The other day, I was helping my son organize his school schedule. We were talking about how he could better manage his time to accomplish all that he wanted to do in a day. He said something that caught my attention: “I have trouble managing all the distractions.”

I have the same problem. I know how to manage my time; it’s the distractions I have trouble managing! I’ll be cooking dinner and my smartphone tells me I have an email or text. I pause to check and make sure it’s not something important. My laptop lures me with unending recipes at my fingertips. The TV tempts with new and different ways to cook healthily, exercise efficiently, and all the latest news. I find all this information interesting, so I have to call a friend or talk to my husband before I forget about it. I walk into another room of my house to find my husband and get distracted by the dust that needs to be cleaned, a mirror that reminds me that my grey hair needs attention, coffee cups that need washing, library books that need to be returned, dog hair that needs to be swept up…This in turn gives me an idea of something I want to write about. I pause to type a few sentences before I forget. My husband walks by the kitchen and says: “Is something burning on the stove?” Oops!

“Time is a talent given us by God, and it is misspent and lost when not employed according to his design. If we have lost our time heretofore, we must double our diligence for the future.” (Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary)

Ain’t that the truth!

I have misspent and lost my time. I haven’t always employed it according to God’s design. How can I double my diligence for the future?

I need to manage the distractions. Like a whip-wielding circus ringmaster, I have to figure out a way to keep the beasts from taking over the show.

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