For anyone who knows me or has been around me for any amount of time, you have likely noticed that I move and operate very efficiently. I park closest to entrances and exits, I walk the quickest or shortest path between areas, and other little things that my brain is constantly processing to save time and energy. Now I'm not saying that I'm the fastest, smartest, or best at anything you've seen me doing. But I am highly efficient. I even described myself that way in my personnel review last year for work. I believe that being efficient is a strength in a person. But I have also learned greatly over the past few months that being too efficient can be a weakness.
To be perfectly efficient, everything must have a schedule and operate smoothly and on time. And if that schedule gets off then everyone must work harder and go faster with no mistakes to get it back on schedule. I've been this way at the gym, at work, at church, at most regrettably at home. The problem with this is that when things go off schedule as the inevitably do, the "push" that I attempt to give others often causes stress. If it doesn't stress those around me I know it at least stresses me.
Why does such a high level of efficiency matter? What if I told you that it often doesn't. My mornings are often rushed and hurried not because I want to be on time for work, but because I want to be early. I can rush Britt and Thomas, have the bags packed, lunch made, and coffee ready to go at a set time and shave 7 minutes off our morning routine. But what does that 7 minutes really matter? I've hardly ever been late to work (except for a barfing kid on the way to town) so I'm fine there.
Do those extra minutes at the bank really make a difference in my productivity? I would imagine most of us waste much more than 7 minutes a day at work as I'm sure I have. In fact, it's impossible and dangerous to operate at maximum efficiency. For a business to be perfectly efficient, it would need to operate with no margin. That means it offers its services or products at such a low price for consumers that it cannot afford a breakdown, sick day, or some other mini-disaster. Businesses must operate with a profit and some comfortable margin; it's how they pay employees, give benefits, handle overruns in expenses, and give back to their community.
As individuals, our schedules cannot be perfectly efficient either. One speaker described the availability of time in our schedule as breathing room. If you plan every minute of every day of every week, what do you when you get tired or sick, when a friend needs you, or when a family member needs to talk? This is much easier for me to write than to do, but: Our schedules MUST have breathing room in them. We must budget a few extra minutes to keep from running from the gym, to work, to a meeting, to a study, to clean house without a break. We have to have time to talk to friends; to make, sustain, and grow relationships. We have to have time to stop on the way taking our kids into school to point at the airplane, listen to the birds, or take a selfie. Give up the 2 minutes it takes to give someone your undivided attention and see how time slows down around you when you stop to enjoy life.
Our budgets must operate the same way. I love spreadsheets, numbers, and making it all balance. And with the recent completion of our house, the unanticipated extra expenses, the expectancy of a little girl in November ($$$), and the new set of bills and payments, I have a spreadsheet set up that would make my business professors proud. But after I ran pages and pages of numbers and read numerous guides to budgets, I came to one simple conclusion from a devotional. Britt and I focused on how much we would give and how much we would save. No, we won't always stick to it perfectly, and there will be months where we won't be able to do or buy something we want. But by not worrying about the 15 sections of expenses, I removed a huge amount of stress while still keeping us on some sort of a budget.
I can't promise that I won't push for a faster pace when we are getting ready to go somewhere, or that I won't stress about appointments or meetings, or that I won't stress over our finances to ensure that we are being efficient and reaching goals. But I am working on allowing for some slow-downs along the way, and understanding that sometimes doing nothing is actually doing something. Lance Witt wrote of a family that believed the vacation begins when you start the journey, not when you arrive. And that mindset makes it okay to enjoy the moments along this journey we call life instead of pressing for success 100% of the time. Lord, help me to slow down and enjoy the ride.
"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of time because the days are evil." - Ephesians 5:15-16
To be perfectly efficient, everything must have a schedule and operate smoothly and on time. And if that schedule gets off then everyone must work harder and go faster with no mistakes to get it back on schedule. I've been this way at the gym, at work, at church, at most regrettably at home. The problem with this is that when things go off schedule as the inevitably do, the "push" that I attempt to give others often causes stress. If it doesn't stress those around me I know it at least stresses me.
Why does such a high level of efficiency matter? What if I told you that it often doesn't. My mornings are often rushed and hurried not because I want to be on time for work, but because I want to be early. I can rush Britt and Thomas, have the bags packed, lunch made, and coffee ready to go at a set time and shave 7 minutes off our morning routine. But what does that 7 minutes really matter? I've hardly ever been late to work (except for a barfing kid on the way to town) so I'm fine there.
Do those extra minutes at the bank really make a difference in my productivity? I would imagine most of us waste much more than 7 minutes a day at work as I'm sure I have. In fact, it's impossible and dangerous to operate at maximum efficiency. For a business to be perfectly efficient, it would need to operate with no margin. That means it offers its services or products at such a low price for consumers that it cannot afford a breakdown, sick day, or some other mini-disaster. Businesses must operate with a profit and some comfortable margin; it's how they pay employees, give benefits, handle overruns in expenses, and give back to their community.
As individuals, our schedules cannot be perfectly efficient either. One speaker described the availability of time in our schedule as breathing room. If you plan every minute of every day of every week, what do you when you get tired or sick, when a friend needs you, or when a family member needs to talk? This is much easier for me to write than to do, but: Our schedules MUST have breathing room in them. We must budget a few extra minutes to keep from running from the gym, to work, to a meeting, to a study, to clean house without a break. We have to have time to talk to friends; to make, sustain, and grow relationships. We have to have time to stop on the way taking our kids into school to point at the airplane, listen to the birds, or take a selfie. Give up the 2 minutes it takes to give someone your undivided attention and see how time slows down around you when you stop to enjoy life.
Our budgets must operate the same way. I love spreadsheets, numbers, and making it all balance. And with the recent completion of our house, the unanticipated extra expenses, the expectancy of a little girl in November ($$$), and the new set of bills and payments, I have a spreadsheet set up that would make my business professors proud. But after I ran pages and pages of numbers and read numerous guides to budgets, I came to one simple conclusion from a devotional. Britt and I focused on how much we would give and how much we would save. No, we won't always stick to it perfectly, and there will be months where we won't be able to do or buy something we want. But by not worrying about the 15 sections of expenses, I removed a huge amount of stress while still keeping us on some sort of a budget.
I can't promise that I won't push for a faster pace when we are getting ready to go somewhere, or that I won't stress about appointments or meetings, or that I won't stress over our finances to ensure that we are being efficient and reaching goals. But I am working on allowing for some slow-downs along the way, and understanding that sometimes doing nothing is actually doing something. Lance Witt wrote of a family that believed the vacation begins when you start the journey, not when you arrive. And that mindset makes it okay to enjoy the moments along this journey we call life instead of pressing for success 100% of the time. Lord, help me to slow down and enjoy the ride.
"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of time because the days are evil." - Ephesians 5:15-16
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