Daylight Saving Time: 5 Tips to Effectively Manage Your Time

Daylight Saving Time: 5 Tips to Effectively Manage Your Time

Depending on where you live in the world, you perhaps honored daylight saving time yesterday. Most of the US went from 1:59 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. early Sunday morning. Although the hours of sunlight throughout the day are getting longer, are you really saving time? Did your church do something special for daylight saving time?

Whether you offered ready made breakfasts or “do nut” be late Sunday, the change does affect your schedule. But, since your schedule is changed because the nations choice of observance to daylight saving time, have your ever examined your schedule to free up more time? Perhaps made changes to better your life and use your time wisely?

Daylight Saving Time: 5 Tips to Effectively Manage Your Time

Whether you are a wife, mother, homemaker and/or working outside the home; I am sure you would love extra time, am I right? And although many seasons in our lives are very busy, there are seasons when we could honestly schedule our days and time better. A purposed decision to have good time management skills. Here are 5 tips to effectively manage your time while serving the Lord or being in the ministry.

Daylight Saving Time: 5 Tips to Effectively Manage Your Time

1. Schedule your priorities. Perhaps you have heard to set time aside to spend with the Lord, but have you scheduled it? Is it consistent? Having a time set aside each day to spend with God, read and pray; is essential while serving the Lord. With so many resources out there, it seems foolish to reinvent the wheel. Here are a few links of schedules. http://www.titusjoy.com will have some available in the Download Boutique shortly. You will effectively manage your time better by scheduling your priorities.
   • 10 download and print schedules (currently free) for a visible schedule.
   • Download of a blank template schedule
   • On Calendar’s templates (So many to choose from with many varieties.)
   • Printable Daily Schedule (blank)
   • Blank create and print schedule (A few to choose from & for kids too)
2. Make a monthly to do list. Depending how often you serve, or if you have a full time job outside of church; your monthly schedule looks different. Over the last several years, there have been seasons in life where our time has been extremely stretched thin. You can find more of this in my homemaking post. But, God used those seasons to refine not only my skills, but my trust in Him. I am thankful. Make a monthly list of what “needs” to be done. Then write a section of the “if I have time” options on the bottom. (This could be extra church cleaning, organizing, homesteading and/or homemaking tasks etc.) We shaved off large chunks of time doing things by the month. (Monthly meal planning, monthly grocery shopping (leaving quick stops for the “fresh” items, monthly printing at church (Sunday school lessons, coloring sheets, Bible study copies, even a couple “master bulletin” files to save weekly time by making a single change or two each week. All of this meant less trips to the church as well, reducing our traveling time again.) You will effectively manage your time better by making a monthly to do list.
   • 36 templates to choose from (download and print)
   • Free floral To Do List printable
3. Map out your weekly tasks. Simple enough, right? Write your average day schedule down and see where you can shave off time, or if there is wasted time some where that can be better managed. As this sounds simple, you may be surprised how much time you find hidden in between tasks or just not efficiently being used. After doing so, then see if you can reduce or lump some of your weekly tasks. For example, I shaved time on homeschooling by purchasing an audio version of school to listen while traveling. It did not replace teaching history, but I supplemented in my own variation to teach 3 days a week verses 5. This freed up two 45 minute chunks of time.(Which is now full, by the way. lol.) On lesson days, can you adjust your lesson location, multitask your time while at lessons or map the time to flow better to shave off time from your week? You will effectively manage your time better by mapping out your weekly tasks.
4. Schedule your trips to town and/or errands. You will be amazed at how much time you could shave off in a month if you eliminated your times traveling. Although cutting out travel and errands altogether may not be possible, it is possible and efficient to make several errands and tasks accomplished with minimal travel. On certain days you travel already, even if it is a bit inconvenience are there a couple stops or tasks you can complete that day as well? You will effectively manage your time better by scheduling your trips to town and combining your errands.
5. Multitask, plan, and prepare. Lumping all of these things together adds up to a lot of time that can be saved. When you multitask, plan and prepare; your time may be 5 minutes here or 5 minutes there. But, if you save 5 minutes each day, that’s 35 minutes a week. Or 1820 minutes a year. (30+hours). For example, writing out your meal plan for the week, versus writing out your plan for the month is time consuming. But it saves money, time with fewer trips to the store, time on meal planning and scanning the house for something to eat and less time organizing and going through the cupboards. Over the course of time we have saved time by using a 6 week meal plan, our weekly cleaning schedule, a monthly grocery list, a monthly church day (was also youth night), family plans each month scheduled for the year, planning most church schedules and activities at the beginning of the year, and combining appointments. (We just take most if not all the kids to their appointments in one block.) These are just a few ideas that have shaved time off our commitments that gave us more time with the Lord and our beautiful family and friends. You will effectively manage your time better by multitasking, planning and preparing your week and month schedules.

Daylight Saving Time: 5 Tips to Effectively Manage Your Time

So, as you celebrate sunshine and adjust your schedule; see if there are a few more things in your schedule that can give you more precious time with the ones God gave us to love. And as you schedule activities for the longer days ahead, be sure to schedule dates with your husband, adventures with you children, get-togethers with extended family and sweet fellowship with friends. Isn’t God so good? Remember 10 minutes saved a day is 60+ hours in a year. That’s a 3 day getaway with your hubby ladies, happy homemaking!

Happy Homemaking Ministry wives, thank you for your faithful service to the Lord!