Would everyone who feels busy please raise their hand?
Everyone? Okay, nice!
Seems like everyone, especially me, just feels busy a lot. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Life after college only gets busier.” Well, I see why they would say that, but it doesn’t have to. If the feeling of busyness relates to you, this post may help out tremendously.
Recently, I saw a tweet that said something along the lines of, “If you’re too busy to have a “quiet time” every day with God, you may be busier than God wants you to be.” And it’s certainly true. Relate to you?
Today, I would encourage you to become good at saying “no” to some things.
Our God is perfect. Our Heavenly Father is a good one. And God sometimes says, “No.” This doesn’t contradict his love or goodness, but rather affirms it.
In fact, God hates some things. God says “no” and hates some things because he is love and because he is good. (Psalm 5:5; 11:5, Proverbs 8:13)
This takes wisdom. I believe that if we’re always trying to fit things in our schedule, it will catch up to us and bite hard. I’d like to use a potential example within our community as TMM.
Talking with the staff, our community structure allows endless possibilities. There’s more to take on all the time. We must set goals for the week that are attainable and realistic. Once you hit those goals, you’re free to not work the rest of the week because of our potential to get sucked into another project.
I’d go as far to say, you’re not allowed to work past the goals we set before it. We can stay in touch and still interact on the site, through Slack, on social media sites, etc., but no new projects after goals are met.
Schedule. This is so basic, but so good to hear, friends. Pick a certain day of the week to work on a certain project (or few). If today is not that day, don’t work on it. How freeing!
Personally, I commit my Wednesdays to TMM work. I stay in touch with dudes all throughout the week, but as far as homework, tasks, scheduling, meetings, videos, photos, writing, studying, checking stats, and everything else: that’s my Wednesday. If it’s not Wednesday, I say “no” to these things so that I can do other things well.
Say “no” to what you cannot commit to, because it frees you up to be able to be you elsewhere. If I always tried to fit something new in my schedule, I wouldn’t be able to be a good worker at my workplace, a faithful member to my local church, or most-importantly, a helpful husband.
I could get into the Sabbath here at this point, but I won’t. I’ll just say, if you’re not keeping the Sabbath holy, you need to repent, bro. This is God’s command.
Rest is just as important as working because it affects your work.
Learning to say “no” to things may not always be fun, but it’s better. Like I said, this takes wisdom.
It may be better to think of it as saying “not yet” sometimes too! By saying “no” I’m sometimes saying “later” when I have a day or chunk of the day to spend time on that task later. But I think you’re catching my drift by now.
This has certainly helped me function as the Community Manager of TMM, but also in other areas of life. It’s my hope that you’re able to take this and apply it with yourself or help someone you know who struggles with feeling too busy.
Applying this will allow us to love God and others better.
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