Best Productivity Hack Ever

For those who don’t follow urban slang, a hack is ‘a clever solution to a tricky problem.’ There are always easier ways to do things, which is why you can now find 73 hacks to help you in the kitchen, 55 hacks for living, or even 10 hacks to help you be a better parent. ‘Hacking’ certainly has its advantage, because it is the search for an easier, more efficient method of doing a common task.

The weakness of hacks is that they are ultimately method-focused. A hack helps you do a task more efficiently, but it doesn’t reveal which tasks you should be doing.

In the world of productivity – which overlaps with stewardship for Christians – we all naturally want a productivity ‘hack’ to free up our time. Imagine if you could spend hours studying the Bible, playing with your kids, serving in the church, and you still had time to work your day job…

What you need is not a new hack, but a new perspective.

God gave you the amount of time that He saw fit to give you. It is the same amount of time that He gave me – 24 hours in a day. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that He really gave us as much time as we need, but it’s true.

Unfortunately, there is no hack that can give you more time. There is no hack that can make you productive. What you need is not a new hack, but a new perspective.

Maybe you have the right perspective and are legitimately over-booked. For most of us – myself included – we need to be reminded periodically of the right perspective on time and productivity – our time is God’s time, and we need to steward it as servants.

Take a moment to answer some tough questions:

1. Do you spend most of the day doing things that you know are profitable and valuable?
2. Do you view your time as God’s time? Or as ‘me-time’?
3. Do you spend much time on entertainment, or do you use entertainment only when needed for the sake of refreshment? (Entertainment isn’t necessarily wrong, but it has a purpose: to refresh and reenergize. The purpose of entertainment is not to pass the time)
4. Do you view your seconds and minutes as valuable?

As you go through life, remember how valuable your time is. You can get a lot done if you set your mind to it and put entertainment to the side, but it requires a mindset shift. In fact, even a few minutes here and there can add up to a lot. It is easy to waste two minutes, or four minutes, when that time could be used to get little things accomplished.

My drive to work is only about 13 minutes long, but I regularly listen to audio books while driving. Surprisingly, that little bit of time adds up, and I’ve listened to several decent-sized books just during my driving to work.

I’m not saying that I have time management figured out, or that I always have the right perspective. I’ve been guilty, often, of squandering my time. I need this new perspective as much as anyone else.

The Bible gives us the best reason in the world why to be diligent and careful with our time:

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16). – As Christians, our duty is to make the best use of the time, because the days are evil. We live in an age of wickedness. We need to be faithful servants, because this age militates against us!

Luke 19:12-27 gives a parable of servants who were given money when their master left. He expected them to use the money wisely. In this parable, the money symbolizes the gifts and blessings that God gives to us. If you’re not familiar with this story, take a moment to read it in the Bible.

Do you realize that your time is a blessing? It doesn’t just ‘happen.’ It seems like it happens, but in fact it is God’s blessing. He doesn’t give this blessing to everyone in the same degree. Some are given more life than others. If you are reading this, God has blessed you with today.

If your time is a blessing, then you are servant who must use the time wisely. ‘Time management’ is not just a western, business-oriented idea. It is a basic concept that should inform how we live our lives as Christians.

To conclude, here are a few quotations that challenge me, and remind me that what I need is not a new productivity hack, but a new mindset of wise stewardship:

“Great men have ever been misers of moments” (Orison Swett Marden)

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” (William Penn)

“The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.” (Shoppenhauer)

“Ordinary people think merely of spending time. Great people think of using it.” (Unknown)

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing.” (Thomas Jefferson)

“Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.” (Samuel Smiles)

“He lives long that lives well; and time misspent is not lived but lost.” (Thomas Fuller)

“A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.” (Baltasar Gracian)

“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.” (Jean De La Bruyere)