Friday, August 03, 2007

Time Budget

Like it or not, I've been listening to a lot of Dave Ramsey lately. The motivator for this is the hospital bills that have been rolling in since the baby was born in April. My out of pocket is getting close to $2k - I wonder what people without insurance do? But I digress.

The Ramsey plan is straightforward: change your behavior. Pay off your debts, build up an emergency fund, pay off the mortgage, start storing up money for... Well, he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about what you want all of that money for. I guess for most people it's obvious.

He has a tremendous focus on getting out of debt. The Truth is, the borrower is the slave of the lender.

I realized over the past few weeks that my debts are not strictly financial. My biggest debts are temporal. Whenever I promise to do something, I'm spending time that I have not yet received. A time debt. What a thought.

In the same way that you cannot live off more than you make, you only get so many seconds in a day. By promising them out, even promising them to good and noble efforts, I am squeezing what precious little time I have with my Savior. And with my family. And that's the time that truly matters.

God, help me to spend my time wisely. Especially the time I have yet to receive.

This isn't the first time I've written about time management. It surely won't be the last. Spending my time wisely is one of the biggest struggles that I face.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Amen to that my friend!