Becoming a time genius like Jesus: prioritizing

Jesus was on the earth for 33 years. And 3 years of those 33 years, He allocated to ministry. 

Before starting His ministry though, He spent 40 days in the desert. Fasting. Preparing for His ministry and the devil did a silly try to tempt Jesus out of His ministry–didn’t work. 

All to say that, like your and my time, Jesus' time was limited too. If He can accomplish what He needed to do on earth in 33 years, you can for sure do the same if you go about your given days in the right way.

How do you become the time manager Jesus was?

Jesus had a laser-sharp focus on what needed to be done.

That’s what time management starts with: a clear picture of your vision. Where does God lead you?

The focus of Born to Fly is for instance: to provide insights, resources, and community to other Christ-driven solopreneurs to become more confident, effective, and Christlike solopreneurs. 

When you look at that vision, you can think of numerous tasks that need to be done.

But there’s limited time in our weeks so you need to figure out what needs to be done and when. Creating a list of to-do’s doesn’t have to be that difficult, it’s knowing what needs to be on top of that list.

How do you prioritize?

These 3 ways will help you.

1.Look at your vision 

What task will contribute to getting there? That specific task will end up high on your to-do list.

2.Look at your goals

If you set yearly and quarterly goals, you can determine what actions and activities will contribute to those. Whatever does, ends up high on the to-do list.

3. Use the 80/20 principle

You might have heard this many times before, but what does it mean? (Shay Cochrane does a great job at explaining this our podcast) It means that 20% of your time allocated to specific tasks results in 80% of impact. If I know what tasks produce the most fruitful outcomes, those tasks will be the main priorities and the first to be crossed off of your list.

Prioritizing what needs to be done is one of the most important parts of time management. Jesus knew how to do that very well (Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 1:35-39)
Then the actual scheduling can begin. 

Surely, Jesus had a sense of how long He wanted to be in each village before moving on to the next. He accomplished what He needed in one town, even though He might not have healed every person or cast out every demon in the people He encountered. He did what was most necessary.

How to schedule your work days?

You could start with scheduling time blocks.

Most people are freshest in the morning. If you are as well, start with scheduling 1,5 hours time blocks for doing “deep work”. Deep work is needed for tasks that require focus and thinking. 

In the afternoon, you could plan time blocks for shallow work such as answering emails or posting on social media.

Of course, not everything can be scheduled. And there are exceptions when you have to ditch the schedule and just go with the flow.

But try to make an effort, because it will make you more productive and you will get more things done. When you reach the end of your workday, you want to be able to look back at it and think, I did some fruitful work for the Lord. 

Why would you care about time management?

It all boils down to discipline, and that is actually part of our spirit, see 2 Timothy 1:7, and the fruit of the Spirit, read Galatians 5:22. 

Being disciplined in reading the Word and praying is gonna help you create a better relationship with God. So being disciplined in going about your work and other roles you are called to, will help you become a better steward in those areas too. 

—

If you want to go deeper into becoming a time genius like Jesus, read the 4-day Bible plan that’s available on YouVersion.