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Blessings from United States, California. My name is Elaine Kung. We continue with Work-Life Balance, number eleven. Today, we work through the effective time management six ‘S’ going into number five. Shine with healthy habits at work and at home, our whole lifestyle. The smart way to manage ourselves is to have healthy habits. And how do we establish those?
Matthew 6:33 remind us to “seek first, his kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” That has been my experience in my 40 years as a Christian, whether in college, even though when it's very busy, high stress, exams, and projects, I know to prioritize my relationship with God. I don't skip doing my devotion, I don't skip going to fellowship, or I don't skip going to church, because those are important things to me. So, it's not just legalistic. It's really keeping healthy habits, keeping a discipline and honor God on what's first and important. So, when I did that throughout my college, I ended up actually with very good grades and God really honors my commitment for him. So be wise how to see first God's kingdom and his righteousness.
And when we do that, remember, that way we’ll know to do more self-discipline, which is the healthy habits, our focus today. That we would do more of the Q2 and Q1. Those are all important things. And you can see this cartoon below. Exercise, healthy activities, are all self-disciplined that we want to do more. We also want to have more self-control, meaning doing less selfish desirous things, less Q4 and Q3 that are not important. Like these two teenagers, a lot of snack and a lot of tv. So, when you are excessive doing these selfish desires that's lacking self-control. So those two are part of our healthy habits.
When we're able to do that and work toward our goal management and be effective, that will be a result. We will be more efficient when we do things with the right way and will be more effective, when we do the right things, align to our goal and our priority, so that you're not busy, doing the wrong things and not being effective. And then you'll be more significant and leaving a legacy behind because you're doing life together. You’re influencing life with your own life experience, you're investing in people's lives, and you become a blessing to others. So that's our goal. When we build healthy habits that we want to have such effective goal management.
And remember, in this healthy habits, what quadrant do they belong to? Quadrant 2. They are not urgent, but they are important. Quadrant 2, we want to maximize those, we want those to be 65 to 80% of our time. And we decide to do those and put it into our plan. We need to be proactive to do those, not to wait around and be too late. For example, brushing your teeth is a good example. You proactively brush them every day. If you don't brush them, because it's not urgent, and yet it's important, then you keep delaying not brushing, guess what? You get decay, you get cavities. So, if you're proactive, then you can prevent the cavities, and you can even predict what would happen if you don't brush them. So that way you’re motivated.
So, there are many healthy habits, example. We're gonna go through in the next few minutes and learn to maximize to have more healthy habits, Q2. That way, you’ll really do what's important, when it’s not urgent. Unfortunately, sometimes, if you delay and procrastinate, what's not urgent and important become Q1. They move from Q2 to Q1 and become more urgent while still important. Then it becomes more like a fire drill. So become Q1, it becomes stressful, and may not do a good job, because you're under the gun, very crunch in time. So, we want to limit those to 10, 20 to 25%, because if more than that, your life becomes very stressful.
And then Q3, the purple color is 15% maximum. They are not important, may seem urgent. So, we may delegate, and we went through some examples in the past. And finally, if you have so much good healthy habits in Q2, and then some in Q1, you don't have enough time, or interest, or attention to do Q4. Those are not important, not urgent, should be less than 1%. That's how my calendar and my life is. Because I have so many Q2 and Q1 and some Q3 that I don't have time to waste. I would delete those Q4 because they're not important and not urgent.
Now, having fun and relaxing is in Q4. Proper time to rest and relax and have fun is in Q2. So, with all the responsibilities we have, how do we wear these hats? So, remember this graphic I really like. This lady walking and how do we walk in a very balanced way? I need to have a strong vertical backbone and the backbone is my faith and my fitness. These are the two ‘F’s to start with. My relationship with God, if it's right, then everything will fall into place. And then my fitness, meaning our body, mind, and spirit being healthy. Those two are my backbone. Good support.
Then my right foot is like my family. My left foot is like my firm. That's my family and my career, my work. We mostly spend most of our time in our life on these two. So, it's like our right leg and our left leg. Then our hands will be available as we build a strong backbone and walking well and taking care of family and firm and having our hands available to serve other people in the church and in a community and build good fellowship. So, these are the five ‘F’s, and it's in this priority order that I would schedule my time. That does not mean that I’m gonna just put time in all these five ‘F’s, and I have no time to serve. That's not the case. We want to know to look at and care for all these five areas and allocate time.
So, we start with managing ourselves. Galatians 5:22-23 reminds us “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” So, it's all about self-control. Remember, self-discipline, doing healthy habits and self-control, doing less selfish desires. So, we need to keep the main thing, the main thing. So, looking at the fruit of the Spirit, start with self-care, managing ourselves. It's really establishing these eight items as healthy habits. These are all in Q2, caring for our spirit, our mind, and our body. So, self-care are eight lines build to an acrostic, S.E.L.F. C.A.R.E.
‘S’ is spiritual maturity. As I shared before, when we are right with God, everything will fall into place. So, I always start my day, reading the bible. It may not be an hour, may not even be 30 minutes, sometimes could be 5 minutes, 10 minutes. Start with God, talking to God, say good morning, and reading God's word, meditate. It doesn't have to be a whole book, or even a whole chapter. It could be five versus, it could be one scripture, and you meditate on it throughout the day. And then it's not just a morning time, during the day as well, interact with God. And our ministry, called to work, is to help us to take Jesus to work. So that’s when you see God guiding you and blessing your work throughout the day and throughout the week.
‘E’ is to establish healthy habits more in terms of our physical health. So, I do 10,000 steps every day, eat healthy super food, salad, and water, and I’ll show you some pictures. ‘L’, live today as if it may be the last day, we don't know how long we live. I don't mean to be superstitious, right? We need to be more proactive, enjoy every day. If today is the last day, who do I need to love, to care for, to apologize, or write a thank you note, or what things I want to relax and play game with my family. Things that I want to add meaning and abundance to my life and living to the fullest. That's ‘L’, that I would do and not procrastinate. ‘F’? Fun. Fun is part of Q2, as long as it's not excessive addiction, endless, aimless, right? So, fun would be our family time, your personal quiet time, travel, visit somewhere around the world, games, and treat ourselves, well, get a nice coffee, nice dessert from time to time, relax. And we’ll talk more about relaxing in the future. Relaxing, resting, and having margin the white space, that's all part of Q2 in the ‘F’, fun.
And then ‘C’, call on others for help. No one is an island. We need people to walk alongside in our faith journey, in our life journey. We need to have accountability partners, prayer partners, and angel, helping and encouraging each other. Holding each other accountable on our time, on our talent, on our treasure, how we use them. And then we walk this faith of journey, our journey of faith together, share our joys and burdens. So, for us, we start with our family, my spouse, my husband, and my children, every week, we have family time on zoom, 1-2 hours, sharing, playing games, and sharing with each other what the needs are and pray for each other. Every day I spend time with my husband reading, watching some favorite tv online programs, or going out to date. And we have Thursday could be Tasty Travel Thursday. And Friday could be Foody Fun Friday. So, we allocate time so that we are in charge of our calendar and call on each other.
‘A’, attitude matters. Right mindset, growth mindset. Not afraid of challenges, and also be appreciative and positive in our attitude and be resilient, so we're not afraid of mistakes. We learn from a mistake, make sure we just don't make the same mistake over and over again. ‘R’, renew our mind so that we are willing to be trained in our minds, are intellectually challenged, and then keep learning. Stay hungry, willing to learn, be a fast learner to solve problems, so that you’ll be challenged and feel that we know more and now I can solve problems better.
And finally, ‘E’, every day is a gift, enjoy it with gratitude. Every day waking up, thank you God, I have another day to enjoy. And then do these self-care, like brushing your teeth, like these two children, so that we are proactive, we are preventive and predictive and not to have cavities in our life and be sure to allocate time. And doesn't mean you do all eight things every day, but these are your quadrant two, preventive, and help improve and build yourself up. And I said healthy habit is so important, it should be my middle name. Turns out my middle name is really H.H., Hon Heng is my chinese middle name. God has such a good sense of humor.
So, some examples of healthy habits. That is a smoothie that we make every day. A big jar and you can see all the ingredients, the super food, avocado, strawberry, beets, banana, Greek yogurt that's not sweetened, and almond milk and such. So that's very healthy. My student tried to make it, and then they say they really see improvement. Then sleep, that's an area I need to work on better. That's a rare occasion when I have more than 7 hours sleep. Index is 92, that's really excellent. And then 10,000 step every day, 10,000 steps.
And then at work, we also want to have a good way to respond to God as we are called to work and have healthy habits. So that's our ministry, and we say, “Thank God is Monday!” And on our website, calledtowork.org, has many videos and talks and resources to encourage, you to equip leaders, and to expand our workplace networks, so that we know how to respond to God as we are called to work. We have devotions that you can request. You can go on our website and submit. And every Wednesday we send out a short devotion, and you know from the bible, how to apply in practical way. And we get beautiful feedback from people, even from Africa, Nigeria, how our topic ‘Discouragement at Work’ was so helpful to them, exactly what they need at the right time, praise God.
And then we also have short prayer, helping you to start the day with a 5-minute prayer for work, how to thank God for your work and put the things that you need to do into prayer and ask God how to guide you every step. And then experience God’s five ‘P’ blessings, and that's my other secret weapon. Self-care is one secret weapon, the other is the five ‘P’ blessings. I'll share more with you next time. And these are the bookmarks and we'll come back to that again next time. So, shine with healthy habits at work. See you next time.
Reflections:
1. Seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness of God, and all these things shall be added to you (Matthew 6:33). How can we apply this verse to our daily work life?
2. Are your exercise, diet and sleep habits healthy? What needs to be adjusted?
3. Teacher Kung shared that when faith becomes the foundation of our work and life, we can experience the blessings of the 5Ps. What is your experience?