5 Time Management Tips from the Story of Creation – Part One

I read somewhere that we lose minutes before we lose hours, and we lose days before we lose weeks. Unless we learn time management principles early, we will struggle later in life.

In life, we budget and manage our money wisely because it is a limited resource. Then it should be logical that we should also manage our time, as it is even more scarce than money. Once time is gone, it’s gone. Period.

Every single person in this world has the same 24 hour period within which they can do all the duties and activities that they want to or must perform, and then the next day the slate is wiped clean and a new 24 hour period is given to them. There’s absolutely no going back to see if they can make better use of their time. Time traveling is a thing of Sci-Fi movies and useless fantasies.

Then how is it that we can manage our time effectively?

We’ve all read the story of creation in the Book of Genesis. Today we’ll be looking at 5 lessons on time management we can learn from God’s work in Genesis Chapter 1.

1. Plan Ahead

God’s end goal was to create man in the likeness and image of the Godhead. But before that, he created all the rest of creation in order for Earth to be ready to accommodate man. Man was to have dominion on Earth and be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:27-28). Yet we see God preparing all that is necessary before creating man. It is obvious that God has a plan.

Likewise, in our lives, it is always good to have goals and a plan that details how we will achieve those goals. Otherwise, we will not make good use of the time that we have allotted to us every day. What do you want to accomplish in the next 5 years? 10 years? or maybe just the next year? Write your goal (or goals) down on paper and then break your goal (or goals) into days, weeks, months, quarters, etc… so that you can see how best to use your time in order to achieve your goal.

Make a To-Do list and fill it with activities that you want to accomplish. Take your To-Do list before the Lord in prayer and ask for wisdom to know which items on the list are important. The Bible says that there are many plans in a man’s heart, but it is the will of the Lord that will be accomplished (Pro. 16:1). We need to work smarter, not harder in order to use our time more effectively.

2. Take it One Day at a Time

You might have set out to accomplish a lot of goals, but quite frankly, we are limited human beings and we cannot accomplish everything we wish to accomplish all the time. Besides, trying to accomplish too much will just stress us out and then we might have health issues to deal with. This, in turn, will rob us of the time we have in which we could have been productive. If your burden goes beyond your limit, you will crash and burn. There is no joy in that, for sure.

God divided His work into six days. Now mind you, He could have just snapped His fingers and waved His hands and everything would have come into existence, but He chose to take it one day at a time (Gen 1:5, 1:8, 1:13, 1:19, 1:23, 1:31). We can accomplish a lot more just by chunking our tasks than by trying to accomplish everything in one big lump.

For instance, let us assume that you want to write a blog post of five paragraphs. If you cannot write it all down in one sitting, then break it down into just a paragraph a day or maybe even a couple of sentences now and then until you eventually have all five paragraphs written down. Then you will have both achieved your goal and managed your time effectively.

3. Start Early

There are twelve hours in the day. What? Only 12 hours? I thought you said there are 24 hours? Well yes, day and night total 24 hours. We usually have only twelve hours in which we can effectively work in (Gen. 1:3-5). After that it starts to get dark, we get tired, we lose focus, and so on. You get the picture. Jesus Himself said, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” (John 11:9-10)

This means that we should get up early and get a head start on the day. Christ rose up early and He had a very successful ministry (Mark 1:35). The Proverbs 31 woman was an early riser (Pro. 31:15). There are also numerous studies that correlate waking up early with success (Forbes.com/benefits-of-early-risers).

The benefits of having an early morning devotion cannot be stressed enough. Just being able to get out of bed and begin with prayer and praise and handing your day over to God will have a positive impact on how your day will go. The Psalmist David says, ‘Early will I seek You‘. (Psa. 63, Psa. 5:3)

Besides, wouldn’t it be great to actually see the sun rising instead of opening our eyes to realize that the sun had sneaked high up into the sky unnoticed?

Since there are only 12 hours in the day, plan your day accordingly. If you have to decline certain events and activities, do so. Focus on what is important. You will not arrive at your destination by taking every detour on your path.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Tomorrow we will finish this article with tips number 4 and 5.

What other time management tips have you learned from God’s Holy Word or from life? Leave a comment in the comment section to share with us. Thank you!