Shopping for TIME

I just finished reading Shopping for Time by Carolyn Mahaney and her daughters Nicole Whitacre, Kristin Chesemore and Janelle Bradshaw. This book was a great encouragement to me and suggested some new ideas that my husband and I hope to implement in our own lives.

In this book there are 5 tips given to help use time more efficiently and in a way that would most glorify the Lord. Most of the tips offered I am already implementing in my life, but the insight and advice given was very helpful as I "shop" for the best way to use my time.

The tip that I was most intrigued with and excited about was the third tip from chapter 4: Sit and Plan (taking a personal retreat). Personal retreats first started for the Mahaney family, when Carolyn had two small children at home and found herself burnt out and spiritually tired. CJ (her husband) decided to sent her away for 24 hours to rest and renew her spirit. After doing this for many years, Carolyn Mahaney has come up with a plan to best use your time during a personal retreat.

She advises you first to begin by evaluating the priorities in your life, 7 priorities are given for your consideration. After evaluating these areas and bringing them before the Lord you should pick 1 or 2 of these areas/priorities that have the greatest need for change. Through prayer and planing you are encouraged to write up a plan of action of how to best bring about change in these areas of your life.

At first the thought of evaluating all these areas was a bit overwhelming to me, but the more I thought about this idea the more excited I got about it. I plan almost every detail and aspect of my daily life, so that I can be efficient in the use my time. It only makes sense that I would do the same with my spiritual life. Here is just a little excerpt from Shopping For Time "taking the time to comprehensively evaluate our life causes the truly vital issues to rise to the top. In other words, we discover which area is most in need of attention and which steps for change will advance us the furthest. Each season offers only a few best deals, so in order to be successful shoppers of time, we must identify those best deals and buy them up."

I am very excited as Chris and I plan to take personal retreats. Whether the retreat is 24 hours of time, our just a few hours, I think this concept will be a great help to us in being better shoppers of our time. When the time comes for me to take a personal retreat I look forward to sharing my experience with all of you.

If you have not read "Shopping For Time" I would greatly recommend that you do! It was a great blessing to me as I strive to grow in the Lord and use my time wisely. If personal retreats are something that you are already implementing in your life I would love to hear how it has helped you and what this time of planning looked like for you.