It is hard to believe that we are already heading into the fourth quarter of 2018. Time has seemed to have passed at a particularly rapid rate this year. I realize it hasn’t, it has passed at exactly the same pace it always passes. But if nothing else, it illuminates for us the preciousness of time and how finite of a resource time really is.

Given this reality, it behooves me to ask the simple question, “How are you spending your time?”

I rattled myself back to this question a few weeks ago as I was leading a premarital counseling session for a bright-eyed young couple. In this particular session we were talking about “value-based decision making”. That idea that our major decisions in life should be directed by our values that we hold most dear, and not the prevailing cultural or relational circumstances. One way to get our arms around this principle, is to write down personal value statements around major areas of our life – financial, physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. Doing this keeps us in check when we are lulled into wanting to make a bad decision.

As leaders, we should do the same thing with our professional lives. How we spend our days, is largely reflective of what we value.  Whether or not we make that next call is dependent on what we value most at that time in our day. Whether or not we choose to have that difficult conversation is depended on the value we place on the relationship.  When we decide to shut down professionally for the day and “go home”, even if it is from a home office, says to our family, ‘I value you more than work’. We only get 24 hours each day. How we manage it is based mostly on what we value.

“How are you spending your time?”