How You Spend Your Time Is How You Spend Your Soul

“The decisions you make determine the schedule you keep. The schedule you keep determines the life you live. And how you live your life determines how you spend your soul.” ~ Lysa TerKeurst

Last week, we talked about how much of our lives we spend working and why I believe it’s so important to find meaning and enjoyment in the work we do. But work is only one piece of a much bigger question I want us to explore this month: Where is your time actually going?

Because when you really think about it, time management isn’t simply about organizing your calendar or figuring out how to squeeze more into your day. It’s about making intentional decisions about your life. And as Lysa TerKeurst so beautifully puts it in the quote above, ultimately, how you spend your time is how you spend your soul.

That makes our calendars a lot more important than we sometimes realize.

Think about your own life for a moment. Is there something you deeply want to do, experience, create, or become, but you keep telling yourself you don’t have time for it? Do you ever find yourself overwhelmed by your life while at the same time feeling a little underwhelmed about your life? Or perhaps your days are incredibly full, but when you stop and look at what’s filling them, much of it isn’t connected to what matters most to you.

If any of that sounds familiar, it may be time to take a closer look at how you’re spending this precious resource.

Busy Doesn’t Always Mean Fulfilled

There are so many reasons our schedules become disconnected from our priorities. Maybe you’re a people pleaser who has a difficult time saying no, so everyone else’s needs continually get placed ahead of your own. Or maybe you really do want to do it all, so you keep saying yes until suddenly there’s no white space left on the calendar and you’re wondering why you feel so overwhelmed.

Sometimes we even fill our time as a way of avoiding something. We stay busy with easy things because the thing we really want to do feels scary. If we’re constantly answering emails, cleaning the house, helping everyone else, or checking things off our list, we can tell ourselves we’re being productive while conveniently avoiding the dream, goal, conversation, or courageous action that actually matters.

I've seen all these patterns in my coaching work, and I think most of us can probably recognize ourselves in at least one of them from time to time.

But rather than getting stuck asking why you’ve become so busy, I want to help you focus on how you can begin changing it. Awareness matters because awareness creates choice. Once you see where your time is going, you can make more intentional decisions about where you want it to go.

For me, that begins with three things: visualize, prioritize, and organize.

Visualize: Where Do You Want Your Time to Take You?

Before you start reorganizing your calendar, step back and look at the bigger picture. What do you actually want your life to look like?

Think about your goals, dreams, relationships, health, work, contribution, and even the experiences you want to have. What makes you feel alive? What have you been saying you want to do “someday”? What matters enough that you don’t want to look back five or ten years from now and wish you had made more time for it?

Once you have that vision, look at your current schedule through that lens. Are the decisions you’re making about your time taking you toward the life you say you want?

Because our lives aren't built someday. They're built in the weeks, days, and hours we're living right now.

Prioritize: Remember That Every Yes Has a No

This is one of the most important lessons we can learn about time: Every yes has a corresponding no.

When you say yes to one more commitment, you're saying no to whatever could have occupied that time instead. When you say yes to another hour of work, you may be saying no to dinner with your family. When you say yes to scrolling on your phone for an hour, perhaps you're saying no to reading, exercising, sleeping, or working on a goal that matters to you.

That doesn't make any particular yes or no inherently wrong. The important question is whether you're choosing intentionally.

Are you saying yes to something because it genuinely matters to you, or because you feel guilty saying no? Are you saying yes out of habit? Obligation? Fear of disappointing someone? And when you look at what you're giving up in exchange for that yes, are you comfortable with the trade?

Those are the kinds of questions that help us make more soulful decisions about our time.

Organize: Put What Matters on the Calendar

Once you know where you want to go and what matters most, then organization becomes useful.

This is where traditional time-management strategies can help. Schedule your priorities. Block time for important projects. Create boundaries around distractions. Plan ahead so the things that matter most aren't continually pushed aside by whatever feels most urgent in the moment.

But notice the order here.

Organizing comes after visualizing and prioritizing.

Otherwise, you can become incredibly efficient at doing things that don't really matter to you.

And what good is a beautifully organized calendar if it's creating a life you don't actually want?

Take an Honest Look at Your Time

This week, I want to challenge you to do something simple: pay attention to where your time is really going.

Not where you think it goes. Where it really goes.

Look at your calendar. Think through a typical day. You might even track your time for a few days if you want a more accurate picture. Then ask yourself whether the way you're spending those hours reflects the things you say are most important to you.

Where are you spending time that feels meaningful and worthwhile? Where are you giving away time without thinking about it? And where have the things that matter most somehow been pushed to the bottom of your schedule?

You don't have to overhaul your entire life this week. In fact, I wouldn't recommend it. Start with awareness, then make one intentional adjustment.

Maybe you protect an hour for something you've been wanting to do. Maybe you say no to something that no longer deserves a yes. Maybe you put your phone away and give that time back to someone you love. Or perhaps you finally schedule the first step toward a dream you've been saying you don't have time for.

Because time management isn't really about getting more things done.

It's about making sure the things you're getting done are helping you create the life you want.

Your schedule tells a story about what you're prioritizing. Make sure it's telling the story you want your life to become.

If you want to start prioritizing your knowledge but don’t know where to start, look at the Philosophers Notes Here! These quick bouts of knowledge are taken straight from books of all kinds, allowing you the chance to dive into a whole book of knowledge in just a few minutes.