I’m sure that you can guess what today’s devotional is going to be about. After all, it is the first day of a brand-new year. And today’s devotional is a good follow-up to yesterday’s.
Should the Lord tarry and should we live to see 2026, we will all have the exact same amount of time: 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, and 31,536,000 seconds. No more. No less. Therefore, we had better determine to use it wisely.
John Rampton, writing for calendar.com, suggests 13 sneaky ways that we waste time and how to get it back. Written on June 28th, 2025, the article is current and accurate. Here are just a few of his observations:
- Checking your phone for “just a second.” Remember that cell phones are typically not for making calls. We use the to text, IM, social media, gaming, and other apps. We can take this time back by disabling notifications and doing a digital detox.
- Social media. It’s so important to update our status and post funny cat pics or pics of our lunch, right? And, when we are between tasks, it’s tempting to pick up that phone and start scrolling. Before you know it, time has been frittered away. Again, digital detox.
- Multitasking. This was always seen as such a great ability and the mark of productivity. “Even though it feels like you’re doing more, each switch [between tasks] is draining your mental energy and efficiency. Research consistently shows that your brain takes 23 minutes to refocus after an interruption. Over a busy day, this cognitive cost can add up quickly.”
- Overplanning rather than starting. Have you ever known that person who plans something in such great detail but can never seem to get motivated to do it? Today might be the day to actually start the project.
- Searching for lost items. Phone, keys, billfold, glasses – they all have a way of disappearing into thin air, don’t they? How much time is wasted while we search? A solution is to always put these things in the same place.
- Letting meetings drag on too long. I detest meetings with a passion!!! A question is asked and either the silence is deafening or one person talks incessantly. Several
suggestions are made to cure this. One is to have a definite start and stop time for the meeting and an adherence to those established parameters. Another is to have the meeting via email with bullet points of items that really don’t need discussed and discussion items directed and focused for clearer responses.1 My personal bugaboo about meetings is when a printed agenda and detailed list are given, then the person holding the meeting reads the entire thing to everyone. Listen, if you made an agenda, printed it, and passed it out to everyone, you’ve already made the assumption we can read so let us READ!
Mr. Rampton has more that you can read at the link below.
Today, let’s start the year with good time management. Ephesians 5:16 says, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” We dare not squander such a precious commodity as time. Once it’s gone, it’s gone and there is no retrieving it.
As Christians, we have some powerful admonition in Romans 13:10-12. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (11) And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. (12) The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.”
Let’s utilize the time we have been given wisely! There’s work to do for the Lord and this could be the most productive year for Him that we’ve ever had. Remember the warning of James 4:14 and give the Lord all you’ve got while you can.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
1https://www.calendar.com/blog/13-sneaky-ways-youre-losing-time-and-how-to-steal-it-back/
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