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Hello, I’m Elaine Kung, Blessings from California in the United States. We continue with Work-Life Balance, topic number sixteen, our second last session. We have been working through the six ‘S’ on effective time management. Last time we finished those four major tools and review. And now we continue with shine with healthy habits at work and at home and share harmony at work and at home with the rhythm. We're gonna focus on what a rhythm means.
So, we have so many responsibilities and so many hats to wear. How do you wear all these hats? What is work- life balance? I suggest that it's not about balance, it's very difficult to balance. I suggest we dance with God in a rhythm like in Psalms 149, “Let them praise His name with dancing.” How do we do that? Because if you try to have work-life balance, it's very frustrating. The gymnast can balance. Life isn't just about balance, it's about rhythm at a different pace, during different season in your life. Balance is for the gymnasts. Rhythms for us will be our disciples. We are disciples and also building the right discipline. Let us get off the balance beam and enjoy learning how to dance to the rhythm with our God. And then we'll talk about how to establish and keep the right rhythm at the different life stages and seasons. And I’ll share my own examples.
So, when we try to do a work life balance on a ball, on a balanced beam will get discouraged, exhausted, and frustrated. I suggest we're gonna dance before the Lord, like it said in Psalms. And we're gonna introduce this whole idea of rhythm. It's a discipline which is also the root word for discipleship, that we want to build a discipline in our life of rhythm, and that discipline for both action and inaction. We need to have discipline.
So here we go. RHYTHM, some are in action, some are without action, just like the first one, without action. We need to start with ‘R’, rest. So that will be renewed, and we learn to trust and obey that if we do our best God will help us with the rest. So we trust him with the result and we rest in him. And the three ‘S’ to help us to rest. We want to be still, must be silent, and then be solitude with our God, and to really meditate and spending those quiet times with God.
‘H’ high priority aligns to your smart goals and the five ‘P’ model we talked about before. So that way, you know what's important, aligning to your SMART goal that’s specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. And it's aligned to your five ‘P’ pyramid, your purpose, your vision, principle, your values, and decision making criteria. Your passion, what you love to do, even when you don't get paid, your strength, your personality, it's like a fish go into the water. People, your soft skill, your relationship with people, and finally performance, your heart skill in your commitment to deliver your best. So that is very important to define, to develop your five ‘P’ and then, deliver these five ‘P’. And how you spend your time should align to these goals and priorities.
‘Y’, yearn to do your passion, that should be life giving and energy giving. If you're doing what you enjoy and love to do, time goes by fast and you get things done, and it's giving you energy. So, for example, my passion is teaching. So, I didn't teach him school and yet for 30 years, I taught children in youth Sunday school and adults now. And I teach my children at home, and at work I also use my teaching skill to help others. So, when you’re using your gifts to serve others, you are enjoying how you spend your time. So it gives you energy, gives you life, and that you become not just efficient, but also effective, and then have significance in your life. ‘T’ is time management essentials. We remind ourselves again, what is quadrant two? The important and not urgent one. So, we know to do the right things in the right way.
‘H’ is healthy habits. We always think about maximizing our time to do those quadrant two, important and yet not urgent. Those are healthy habits to take care of ourselves, self-care. So that becomes our lifestyle as internalize, we take care of our body, mind, and spirit. That way, we take good care of ourselves and we can take care of other people and other things. Remember, self-care is not selfish. Selfish is me, myself and I, my own benefit and my own gain, my own agenda, self-centeredness. But self-care is about taking care of myself in a healthy way, so that I can be a channel of blessing to others and that I can take care of other people and other things. And that's not gonna be easy, it's gonna be baby step, building those tiny habits, healthy habits and reward ourselves a step at a time. A moment at a time, a day, at a time.
Finally, ‘M’ is to manage all these goals that we talked about. And last time we also covered the detail of the goals, and then be willing to accept the reality. And know your own limitation, everyone is different. Some received 1,000 talent, some 2,000, some maybe 5,000 talent, except the way that God has gifted us and manage our calendar, according to all these principles. Be sure to have white space and buffer so that we have margin for the unexpected. And then very clearly define to-do lists and know how much time it takes, align those to your goals and your priority, and then check it off. And you’ll feel so accomplished when you get those done, working toward the end goal, defining the project plan, the milestones. And the time allocation and track yourself with the progress for every day, every week, every month, every quarter, and every year. And that collectively will help us to build discipline and dance in this rhythm.
And remind us, some of the core principle. In the time management, we want to maximize our time in Q2, important and not urgent. And these are the areas that should be 65 to 80% of the time, where we are proactive and we are preventive and predictive, so that we know and be ahead of the game. That is the best space to be in. That's when you improve, you train, you plan, and build all your healthy habits or the self-care. And we avoid rushing when we have to do important and urgent, that's Q1. But you still have to do those, less than 25%. And then Q3 and Q4, we should try to minimize those.
And remember to do more self-discipline. That's healthy habits, Q2 and Q1. And then self-control, less selfish desire, less Q4 and Q3. That way, we have effective time management in what we want to do and how we gonna do them. And just a quick reminder, efficient, is doing things the right way, effective, is when you're doing the right things. And then you want to have a significant life and leave a legacy by doing life together. Life changing life, life influencing life.
And then this is the self-care we talked about. These are non-negotiable. Put time in, doesn't mean you do all eight every moment, but schedule your time for these eight things. And doesn't mean spend hours on all these. It's a matter of a discipline and a rhythm. And these are all healthy rhythm, healthy habits, from Q2 that we want to do, one by one. We've gone through these and we won't cover again. And we want to focus on RELAX and God’s five ‘P’ blessings. So, the RELAX is the part where we want to be refreshed. Remember that’s the ‘R’ in the RYTHM as well, to rest in the Lord. So, time management doesn't mean that you have to do a lot of things all the time. It means doing the right things, aligned to your priority and your goals. It includes self-care, includes relaxing.
When we relax, we know to remember our value, our worth, our identity is defined in Christ. It is not defined by how much I accomplished, not defined by what job title I have or how much money I make or how well people like me. Those are not bad things, but remember, our value is defined in God. And enjoy what I already have. Half glass full, not to look for things that you don't have. ‘L’ is to limit my work to 6 days or 5 days, so that you’ll have time to rest, and I’ll show you an example in my life. ‘A’ is to adjust the value according to what's needed, and your priority. ‘X’ is to exchange my restlessness and worries and anxiety for God's peace, because we want to have God's peace in our life.
So, remember this picture, good reminder, as a bi-vocational minister, including if your homemaker, or your engineer, or a chef, or librarian, or teacher, we live an integrated life with a strong backbone, with our, faith, and our fitness. And then our family and our firm, our right foot, and our left foot. And finally, our hands can serve others, and fellowship.
So, I encourage us no matter how busy you are in different season, we experience how to allocate time to serve others. So, throughout our different seasons in our life, in our days when our children are young in New Jersey, we are committed to children ministry and youth ministry, and also have the ‘Called To Work’ ministry. And then in Dallas, we continue with ‘Called To Work’ and we have this Stephen Ministry. So that at the time of empty nesters, we know to schedule time to serve others. And then now in our retirement and our re-Firement, in our San Diego, California days, focus very much on faith and work ministry. We don't wait and say, “let’s we wait for children to grow older”, “wait for our retirement”. But in every season, know how to prioritize and know to still serve.
This is an example from our three stages in our life. When our children were teenagers back in 2004 in New Jersey, this is a day in our life, in our schedule. I want to highlight from Monday to Friday the rhythm of working. And I tend to be a workaholic, not good. But look at all the blue ones, all the blue are the self-care, and quadrant two, important but not urgent. And look at what I underlined. Those underlined are family and the togetherness. So even though it seemed like we're doing a lot, we do things together. Including our cleaning, our home duties, our privilege. Remember we talked about those as privilege, that we do them together. And even in the weekend, our interaction, both for fun things and for doing privileges. Togetherness makes a big difference. That's an example of doing one thing with multiple benefits. You build relationship together when you do home privileges and house cleaning together, when you go to church together, when you worship, and you serve in the youth group together. So that way we grow together in Christ and we grow together with each other. So remember, look at all the blue, even though it seemed very busy, and yet the blue is the self-care with our children. And align to those five ‘F’ priority, with our faith, our fitness, then our family and our firm, then our fellowship.
And then during empty nester, when we were in Dallas, this is a day in my life. Again, Monday through Friday is the work. And then evening we have different ministry, different events. And the blue are the self-care. Saturday is the time to catch up with my family and friends. Also did some cooking which I enjoy, and always exercising every day 10,000 steps. And then the weekend, remember the RELAX, and throughout the week as well. And also the date nights. So, we do bible study and date night with my husband together. So, keeping those five ‘F’s in mind and having this rhythm.
Finally, now in our retirement or ‘re-Firement’, in San Diego, California. This is a day in the life. Again, the blue are the self-care, quadrant two, important but not urgent. Even in giving 20-30 talks a month and doing 20 one-on-one coaching, sometimes we do two-on-two. My husband helps me to prepare, and we pray every time before my talk, so the togetherness is important. And so much opportunity to learn at the same time. So that's my day in a life.
And in conclusion, I am careful to do self-management. It isn't just about managing my time, is also managing my priorities, my emotions, my energy level, my stress, my thinking, my thoughts, my attitude, my words, how to build relationship with my family and with co-workers and ultimately my personal life. So, we're coming to a close, next time is our final session. I'll see you then.
Reflections:
1. Calculate how much you can score on time management? Are you satisfied with the result?
2. Take a close look at the questions with low scores and find your biggest time holes.
3. combined with the content of the picture "Use time well", let's see how to improve it?