Leaders are not impetuous. They keep a balance between emotional drive and sound thinking. Enthusiasm stimulates their energy.
A short battle for time can be won with the techniques of the previous chapter. But you can only win the war with a philosophical base. You have to face such questions as “Why do I want to get more out of time? Is it my fear of God or judgment? Is it because I want to become famous or make money? Am I part of a peer group that always seems busy? What’s the real reason to squeeze more into my days and weeks?”
These days, haste has become almost a status symbol. People assume, If I’m busier than you are, I must be more important. They don’t wait for planes to stop before they’re up grabbing coats and carry-on luggage. They drive their cars aggressively, trying to get someplace thirty seconds sooner.
I was in a cafeteria recently, and a fellow was trying to get past me to the cashier. I could tell I was supposed to be impressed with the fact he was so busy.
Maybe I’ve missed something, but I always thought if you were successful, you had more time, not less. That’s why they used to call the wealthy “the leisure class.” In fact, the ancient Greeks made a great case for succeeding in life, reasoning that only those with leisure could think about ideas, which was, after all the highest calling, the mark of true achievement. But these days, as Donald Bloesch puts it, “busyness is the new holiness.” Lack of time is a status symbol, and that, to me, is backwards. If you really are somebody, you are in control of your time.
What, then, ought to be our approach to time? Do we assume that time is meant to be used to the fullest (a very American idea)? We need to know what we’re after if we’re going to win the war for time.
Personally, I think optimizing opportunities and talents—in a sense, bringing redemption to everything around—is a valid reason to use time well. This arises from my philosophical cornerstones:
1. I’m a created being and therefore responsible to the Creator for my life.
2. Time is simply life’s clock. Time is a tool—a means in life, never an end. (The same is true of money, by the way; that’s why we used to speak about “men of means.” Now we call them rich people, which shows how our thinking has moved, and money has become an end in itself.) Time is not something to be pursued for its own sake but for what can be done with it.
3. Since my life is measured by time, I have a responsibility to control it. Most of us don’t let other people spend our money; likewise, we should limit their power to spend our time, also.
4. I have been given the same amount of time each day as everybody else. The great achievers of the world don’t have any more time than I do. It is simply untrue to say, “I don’t have enough time.” What is not the same for everybody is energy. Unless I recognize my level of energy and realize that it comes in ebbs and surges, I won’t accomplish all I could.
5. I also believe that anything I cannot accomplish in the time I have is apparently not my God-given responsibility to accomplish. God is not going to hold me accountable for what I cannot do because of genuine lack of time.
6. When I know the ultimate purpose of my life, I can know whether I’m using my time properly. If I do not know that ultimate purpose, I have no way of judging my efficiency. Only God and I can know for sure whether I’m wasting time or using it wisely.
Charles Francis Adams, the nineteenth-century political figure and diplomat, kept a diary. One day he entered: “Went fishing with my son today—a day wasted.” His son, Brook Adams, also kept a diary, which is still in existence. On that same day Brook Adams made this entry: “Went fishing with my father—the most wonderful day of my life!”
I decided a long time ago that my ultimate goal in life was to stretch other people. I wanted them to live a bit better, fuller, bigger, more nobly than if they hadn’t met me. This is my sense of redeeming human situations.
When I was a young man, I would jot items to talk about on a little card in my shirt pocket. Instead of making small talk (and knowing that most people don’t care what they talk about), I thought it would be profitable to talk about subjects on which I wanted to expand my thinking. I found I had certain viewpoints I wanted to sell. I would work up little outlines to get them across. I would maneuver the situation around to practice my “teaching.”
As I have gotten older, my agenda has been trying to determine what help the other person needs that I can give. I try to discover the person’s immediate problems. Maybe something in my experience can be helpful. I can take a little extra time and say, “What do you see in life? What’s interesting? What kind of problems are you facing?” without prying or being curious. This has moved me from teaching a subject to counseling a need.
With a goal in life and an intent in each conversation, I think I’m more efficient, more effective.
Spending Time or Investing It?
There are two ways to approach time. One is the technological: minutes as units. The other is the philosophical: minutes as meaning. It’s possible to grasp the technological view so tightly that you end up with no meaning. Technology should always be the servant of philosophy.
Too often people don’t know the difference between a fast track and a frantic track. I enjoy a fast-track life, but I don’t relish being frantic. It’s just as foolish to use every minute for activity as it is to spend every nickel you’ve got. I know some high-income folk who think they’ve got to spend all their money.
A young man in commercial real estate once asked me, “Would you help me with a financial problem?”
“What is it?”
“Well, I earn big commissions—but they’re spaced out.”
“I’ve had some experience with that,” I said. “I’ll be happy to show you how to budget under those conditions.”
I began talking, but pretty soon he interrupted. “Mr. Smith, you don’t understand. In between the commissions, my wife and I get behind on our spending. And by the time we catch up on our spending, we don’t have enough money to pay our bills.”
I went dumb. I had no way to understand that mentality.
Later on, I realized it explained why a lot of people will never be financially responsible. They have an innate feeling of having to spend! They’re supposed to live like the neighbors, and by the time they catch up on their spending responsibility—they are not able to pay the bills. They live frantically.
In the same way, some people think they have to spend time, use it up one way or another—while others invest it. My philosophy is to invest, which means looking for a return on what I do. Some of that return will be in dollars or other visible achievement, but some will be more internal. Investing time wisely does something for you. Over a period of time it brings an appreciation, a patina to life; it generates maturity and fullness.
Not long ago, while waiting to speak to a group, there was a flowery introduction, and I filled the time by calculating in my mind how many days I had lived. I came to something over twenty-five thousand, and I thought, My goodness—a fellow ought to be able to accomplish something in that amount of time. He ought to be able to do almost anything.
When you’re investing time instead of spending it, you don’t get so concerned about running out. That’s what a midlife crisis is: thinking about all the time already gone, the things you haven’t done, won’t get to do—and you get frantic. By contrast, people who invest their time (many rural people, for example) move through the middle years in a much more mature way.
The technological view of time is not wrong. It includes scheduling, digital thinking, techniques, telephone efficiency, learning to do two things at once—anybody with a fairly bright mind can learn them. But the philosophical goes beyond the mind to matters of the spirit.
Many people don’t know how to invest their time because they have never identified their unique purpose in life. They have instead settled for comfort. They’ve climbed the organization chart until they found a comfortable income or responsibility—and they’ve pitched their tent permanently.
Americans are known for seeking comfort and convenience. What this amounts to is settling for life as a consumer rather than a producer. A philosophical approach to life says, “I am a producer, not just a consumer; I must leave behind something extra, some worthwhile evidence that I passed by this way.”
How Much Is Enough?
Most pastors are, of course, committed to a lifestyle of giving. Yet they still struggle in the war for time. Why?
Anyone who tries to meet the needs of people soon finds there is no end of demand for services. What can make this situation livable? I believe the solution lies in stating that your purpose in life is to accomplish what is uniquely you, not just whatever comes along.
There will never be a lack of needs. We can go absolutely berserk trying to meet everyone’s needs. But they are not ours to meet. We’re playing God when we get into that kind of compulsion.
Opportunity is not a mandate to do. Your mandate comes from what you have chosen to try to accomplish.
If my ultimate goal is to stretch people, then I have to decide where I can be most effective. If a farmer has a bushel of corn and several different fields in which to plant it, he will pick the most fertile field. In the same way, I will spend lots of time with someone who has potential for growth instead of spreading it out over ten people who have little potential.
These choices demonstrate the fact that it is more important for a leader to be respected than to be liked. If you are respected, you can influence people. You cannot influence them just by being a good ol’ boy. Think about a medical doctor. I don’t care how pleasant he is—if most of his patients die, he’s not the doctor I’m looking for.
Many times, our “counseling” deteriorates into social chats. The hours tick by, but how many people’s attitudes and actions are changed? That is the question.
Earning Respect for Your Time
People respect us when we can get to the problem quickly. There’s something professional about that. If through reading as well as living we have developed the intuition, knowledge, and experience to be helpful to others, and if we have the courage to go right at the issue and not be afraid of conflict, people will see we mean business with our time.
Even when I must say, “I think I understand the issue, but I can’t help you; that’s not the kind of problem I can treat,” the person may not like me very much, but he or she will respect me.
I also do not give advice; I give observations and list options. I don’t feel I should take responsibility for what other people do. They ought to make the decision. I will say, “Here’s the problem, and here are two or three options I see for you. Now, which are you going to choose? Or do you see other options?”
The next time I see that person, I won’t say, “Hey, how ya doin’?” I’ll say, “How are you getting along on that particular issue? Which option did you choose? How is it working out?”
Once people find out you’re going to hold them accountable, the frivilous counseling requests dry up.
I believe in practicing this approach myself, by the way. When I went to the doctor with high blood pressure, he said, “Why don’t you try losing a little weight?”
In five weeks, I lost twenty-six pounds, which greatly surprised my doctor. But I told him, “Dick, you’re a world-class physician. I haven’t got a right to ask you to keep me alive unless I’m willing to match your dedication.” I wanted him to know this was a give-give situation.
In the same way, I have no hesitancy about demanding that people respect my time and effort, because I’m convinced after years of doing this that it creates respect. Some will drop out. But we must invest our time, not spend it.
A friend sent an acquaintance to me, the executive vicepresident of a large company. He had gotten mad and quit. At age fifty, he was without another job. I saw he had an ego problem and wasn’t really trying to find a job. Overrating his reputation, he was sitting around waiting for somebody to call him.
I suggested this to him. Then I called my friend and said, “Your friend may be a little sore, because I put it to him straight.”
“That’s exactly what you should have said, because it’s true,” he replied. “But I didn’t want to say it because he might not like me.”
So that was why he sent him to me!
I saw the man later. He had found another job, and even though he didn’t particularly enjoy what I did, there was no question that he respected my honesty.
Sympathy and comfort are two very different things. I don’t mind spending time comforting someone, but I won’t spend time sympathizing. Sympathy is an addictive emotion; people want more and more and more. Comfort, on the other hand, brings a light to the darkness. Comfort produces progress; sympathy doesn’t.
This tough approach may not be popular. But I’ve found it brings respect. Lee Iacocca has succeeded at Chrysler not because people like him, but because they respect him. He produced results.
Even intimate relationships in the church can produce results. Unless people are maturing, their affection for the pastor can sometimes be an inoculation. “I like the preacher and the preacher likes me.” What does that mean? Very little. We can get the same closeness at the Rotary Club.
But if you care about people enough to put your life on the line to make them mature, functioning Christians, I suspect fewer and fewer of them will try to waste your time. People who are doing things respect not only their own time but others’ as well. Strong people have an agenda of their own.
People take a pastor’s time seriously if the pastor himself or herself takes it seriously. This is conveyed in small but important ways. For example, you can say, “I hope I won’t lose my salvation for this, but the other day I wasted a few minutes, and you folks know what a nut I am about not wasting time.” They’ll get the message.
You can set definite times for meetings. Even if the calendar is open, you don’t say, “Well, come any time Tuesday.” Instead, you say, “I’ll be glad to see you. How long do you think you’ll need?” Or “How long will it take us to accomplish what you’ve got in mind?” This trains people to think in terms of schedule.
In the same way, you can telegraph your view of time by cutting the conversation off promptly at the end. “Is there anything else profitable that we should talk about, or are we finished?” This establishes the reason we’re talking: to accomplish something.
Personal Habits
Not all time losses can be blamed on other people. Some things are entirely within us.
Periodically, we have to review our personal habits—those patterns of behavior we establish to save time and then forget about. Sometimes habits deteriorate without our realizing it, until they are hurtful instead of helpful.
When I was younger, reading was a more valuable exercise than it is now. Why? Back then, I found a new idea on every page, it seemed. Now, having stored away a great deal of material, I’m lucky to get two new ideas per book. So I have to say, “Is my habit of reading as productive as it used to be?”
That doesn’t mean I’ve quit reading. I’ve simply changed the kinds of things I read. At this point, I do theme reading (if I’m working on a particular project) or else what I call philosophical reading. I want to stay close to certain writers, even though I already know what they have to say. I read Oswald Chambers, for example, nearly every day. I want to maintain a personal relationship with his type of thinking, his personality.
Sometimes people read for ego reasons. They shop the best-seller list. Someone says, “Have you read so-and-so?” and they hate to admit they haven’t, so they go buy the book or at least catch a review. This takes a tremendous amount of time. That is one reason the reading habit has to be reviewed every so often to be sure it’s still productive.
Another area to consider is driving time. It’s gotten very popular to listen to tapes in the car. I do a lot of this myself. But I heard a bright man say he hates tapes because he can read so much faster than anyone can talk. Why take the time to listen when he can get the material in half or even one third the time in written form?
Another problem of tape listening in the car is that you can’t make notes while you listen. You’re really only screening to see whether anything on the tape is worth listening to.
Many times in an automobile, we ought to be quiet. Who says listening to tapes is better than being quiet? My wife and I sometimes drive a hundred miles and don’t say a word. She may be reading, while I’m thinking about some subject, and both of us are making profitable use of the time.
What about the habit of the “business lunch”? In my judgment, eating together is generally only a preface to conversation. You eat for forty-five minutes before you ever get down to business. It might establish rapport, but it’s hard to do serious business. I would rather have thirty minutes eyeballing somebody in an office than two hours over a dinner table. Eating is a social occasion, not the most productive business occasion.
In my city, it’s almost a fad for professional people to have breakfast together. I mean, if you eat breakfast at home, something must be wrong with you. You’re not one of the movers. Such fads have to be reviewed. We have to ask, “Am I really accomplishing anything?”
Now, I do some breakfasts, usually at seven o’clock. I use this technique to find out who’s really serious about meeting with me. I’ve even been known to say to someone who wanted counseling, “Fine—I’ll meet you at six o’clock for breakfast.” It is amazing how many back off.
But I remember one man who took me up on it and was waiting at the table armed with a big legal pad and a tape recorder. I probably helped him as much as anybody I ever tried to help. We’ve maintained a relationship all through the years because he was serious.
On the other hand, if a person wants to see me but admits he doesn’t really have anything definite in mind, I’ll propose lunch. After all, I have to eat anyway. Lunch is a good block of time to at least develop a relationship.
Organized Versus Orderly
In all of this, it’s important to know the difference between orderliness and organization. People who are too fastidious turn orderliness into an end rather than a means—and that takes a lot of time. It’s much more important to be organized.
If you watch A students study, they just study. C students, on the other hand, get ready to study. They get a Coke. They get the pencil sharpened. They lay everything out in a certain format. What they’re doing is avoiding studying by preparing.
A certain amount of orderliness is necessary, of course, but as long as I know how to do my job effectively, I’m organized—and no amount of orderliness will help. A lot of people are orderly because they want to appear organized. When guests come to our house, my wife is always saying, “Be sure to keep your study door closed; I’d hate for them to think that’s the way we live.” But I’d let anybody go in there who’s a worker, and they’d see exactly why things are like they are.
We have to guard against perfectionism. Very few things in this world are worth perfecting, and it takes a tremendous amount of time to perfect anything. If you’re going to move your golf game from seventy-five to seventy-two, you’re going to have to practice a lot more than if you’re moving from ninety to eighty-five. Every point down the scale requires an increase in time and effort.
If you’re perfecting something because you feel, under God, that it needs perfecting, that’s one thing. But if you’re doing it so people will say how good you are … or because you’re afraid of criticism, that’s wasteful. You must decide the degree of perfection your work requires.
I’ve known speakers who were no more effective without notes than they were with notes. But because they wanted to be complimented, they spent unwarranted amounts of time getting ready to speak without notes.
Actually, the things you can do best, you can do fastest. Most people do not really appreciate what they can do best because it’s too much fun! They have a puritanical concept of work that says it’s supposed to be difficult. This makes a person’s specialty feel like leisure or entertainment, not “work”—and that becomes a trap. Fast isn’t always bad.
Temptations
Sometimes we can outwit ourselves in the war for time. I’ve noticed three temptations that pull us aside.
The first is procrastination. If I ever get around to it, I’m going to run for president of the National Procrastination Society. I just haven’t quite gotten around to it.
An executive startled me once by saying he wasn’t taking his briefcase home anymore. I asked why, and he said, “Well, I analyzed my work, and all day long I was sorting papers to take home at night. I found out I might as well just go ahead and make decisions and stop sorting papers.”
A lot of procrastination is based on our fear of action. We review and review and review. I spoke for a preacher not long ago who said he hated Sundays because he hates to preach. What he really hates is to prepare his sermon. He wouldn’t mind preaching at all if he would go ahead and commit the time to his sermon, but he won’t do it. This in turn produces guilt, which drains intensity. Time means nothing if you don’t have energy to focus.
The second temptation is rationalization: trying to prove to yourself you weren’t wrong. It would be so much easier to say, “I messed up. It wasn’t the audience’s fault; I simply wasn’t ‘on’ tonight.” That would save a lot of time.
The third is indecision. I once knew an executive who had a sign on his desk: the definite answer is maybe. And he worked unbelievable hours. Instead of deciding, he would mull around and talk to people about the decision and delay and.…
Maxey Jarman once said to me, “Many people can make good decisions, but they won’t.” Because that means putting their ego on the line.
I see this in a lot of seminary students. They delay making decisions until there is no other decision to make. Then they glorify it by saying it was God’s will. For example, they come to school to “find God’s will for my life,” stay three or four years, spend all their money, go into debt, get married, and have kids. By the time graduation comes, what alternative is there besides going into the ministry? By their indecision they’ve been forced into a certain track for reasons that have more to do with economics than God’s will.
Besides these three temptations, we have to curb certain self-destructive tendencies.
We have to try to stay healthy. If a person is sick twenty days a year, that’s an obvious time loss; most people don’t need to be sick more than a couple of days a year. Most overweight people run short of energy, and when you don’t have enough energy, you can’t make good use of time.
Financial problems are another enemy of concentration. There’s a holiness in paying your bills. As I told a group of singles recently, “When the preacher says on Sunday, ‘Go in peace,’ you can’t obey if your budget is in pieces and you’re facing the bill collector Monday.” That’s true of leaders as well. I’ve seen people spend inordinate amounts of time fussing with bills, because they simply couldn’t delay gratification. M. Scott Peck, the psychiatrist, says the greatest sin in America is this inability to delay gratification.
These temptations are like magnetic fields that must be kept away from computer software. If we are not careful, they will erase our ability to perform.
Time Out
The last part of the war plan for time is the necessity of time out. I guard two things in life: savings and time alone. I simply must have two days every so often to talk to nobody. Otherwise, I can’t stay in control of myself. I can’t feel I am directing my life.
This, again, is why I look forward to time in an automobile. Too many people ride along looking at everybody, listening to the radio or a tape, complaining about the other drivers and the heavy traffic. They never stop to think of a car as a wonderful cocoon, a monastery, a holy cave.
Time with just a few special people is also strategic. Somebody called me the other day and asked me to speak at a Christian convention. I said, “I can’t do it, because Mary Alice and I are going out to Colorado and play golf.”
There was this strange silence on the other end.
So I said, “It’s important. There are four couples going out, and the other three wouldn’t have anybody to beat if I didn’t go. It’s part of my ministry.”
I was being a little facetious—but not much. People lose sight of the fact that relaxation is part of the foundation of one’s contribution. How can you do any thinking if you don’t spend time alone, unpressured, refreshed?
Sometimes I feel like I’m a kid with a quarter in a candy store trying to decide what to buy. Time is my quarter, and once I’ve swapped it for jelly beans or chocolate stars, I don’t want to be unhappy. So I have to choose with care.
In order to make wise choices, I must know my philosophy of what’s good and what’s not—and even with that, I will need to ask for help sometimes. Some of the busiest people I know don’t really need to be so busy. They just can’t bring themselves to ask for help.
I ask people because I think they really can help; I’ve seen something in their life or their track record that proves they have some experience to share. An awful lot of people know an awful lot more than I do about an awful lot of things. I envision myself as a football coach, and they are my “bench.” If I need extra strength, I go to the bench for somebody to help me out. I say to these people, “What are you reading that’s good? What have you read that I don’t have to read? Tell me the major points.” They like to do it, and I get the benefit.
In these ways I maximize the opportunities not just to save time but to use it profitably.
Copyright © 1986 by Christianity Today
