HOURS, driven by a VISION

My friend who I will call Damilola, asked me this question recently. I will attach a screen shot

The moment she asked me, I felt the answer starting to crystallize, and a few hours later, it all came together.

This was no STRAIGHT forward Yes or No answer. It required a voice note, and then a blog post.

Now that we know the backstory behind the blog, let’s go.

We often hear the word VISION thrown around and it can get really overwhelming, especially when you think you do not know the VISION, PURPOSE, MISSION, CORE VALUES and all of such for your life and business or ministry or career.

But really, vision is really what God wants me to be doing with my life and works of my hands in every season.

Interestingly, recently, I had had a WHOLE moment with God where I had just blurted out how I am literally OVERWHELMED with everything God was telling me to do. It literally felt impossible. How in the world would I be able to do it all well, like He wanted?

I felt God so sweetly not only respond, but show me where I had been wasting time, and how if I would MAXIMISE and AGGREGATE all those little pockets of time, I would actually save up and invest my hours better for better fruitfulness and productivity.

Phew & EXHALE!!!!

Maximize

Aggregate

Pockets of time

Save up

Invest

Fruitfulness

Productivity

Big names and terms, all for a simple question? Lol. Or are we talking about one big business here? Hehe

That is the thing. I consider my life a WHOLE business. I take myself too seriously, and NEVER let anyone take me otherwise.

And because our life really boils down to TIME aka HOURS and how we (you guessed right) INVEST it, then we all better be taking those hours seriously, because it is ABOUT TIME

A good time to introduce Craig Groeschel’s leadership podcast on the same topic

https://youtu.be/KvfjKpk9Ci8

Ok, so let me continue with my story.

That same night, I sat down and did an honest AUDIT (Yes another big term) of how I was spending my time, and all those little foxes that steal time. It was a WHOLE revelation. I mean, I recall Christmas day. I literally did NOTHING productive. I was checking whatsapp statuses and chatting almost all day. I know it was Christmas day but there are more productive and healthy ways to celebrate the day.

So with a good idea of all my assignments in this New Year, viz a viz my audit results of my time, I made up my mind to seal up all those holes, figure out how much sleep I would need in a day, prioritize time with God first and family next, then other things God had given me to do, and then start to allocate hours to each.

I hope this doesn’t sound like it was a walk in the park. This was like a WHOLE board meeting and it took quite some energy, discipline, quiet moments, recall of books and resources I had previously ingested to apply, and TIME. 

With a priority list, it made time allocation easy.

Whatsapp, chats, and all such related things fell way below. The crazy thing about time is how it is FIXED. I can increase my energy, my knowledge and so on, but we all get 24 hours. Phew.

I spent every of those 24 hours on ASSIGNMENT based on the VISION I was working on. I included time for leisure and sleep, but just enough to bring a balance to my life without affecting productivity. And I was also sure to use them as a REWARD and not the MAIN THING, meaning they came at the end of my day after most of my day’s tasks had been done, or as portion-controlled schedule breakers (meaning like a quick 20mins break in between tasks to rest my brain with low impact and relaxing activities like chats or a 1 to 1hr 30mins cat nap in the late afternoon after a fully productive and exhausting day to rejuvenate).

Sometimes, all I have is 30mins to catch up on social chats (which are different from chats that are either work/family/purpose related) and I may have 100 chats looking at me. I now have to quickly prioritize because that is the wisest thing to do at the time. This is why we MUST make our chats as straightforward as possible, and also explains why MANY OF US don’t get responses when we chat with people. We may think oh they are proud and so on, but no, their hours are just vision-driven and when they see your ‘good morning ma’ and nothing else, they have no reason to respond.

This is also why I NEVER pressure my mentors with responses, even when I remind them about my question. I understand the volume of people and issues they have to handle

This is also why when some people are on a break or vacation, they DO NOT RESPOND to anyone and they take time longer than what some of us think is enough. I recall when I used to attend Fountain of life church and Pastor Taiwo would go on vacation around June for like 6 weeks and I would be wondering WHY he needed all that time. Now I know. Because when I take a BREAK, you won’t even be able to reach me or pressure me into starting XYZ sooner than I planned.

PURPOSE Street is BRUTAL, Fam. That is why the Bible says ‘Straight and Narrow’

Because strait is the gate, and narrow isthe way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Matthew 7:14 KJV

I may have FLOW days when I don’t have a schedule to follow but even those come at the end of a fully productive week and then I can truly reduce my chat count. Otherwise, if I will keep on bearing fruit, then I must let my hours be VISION-driven and also let myself be led by God when He wants to scatter my schedule. 

So now, with such a strong sense of purpose and vision, do I really have time to miss Instagram, and other social media chats? None of my assignments require me to spend copious amounts of time there. If someone is a researcher or investigative journalist, she MUST spend time there to get her News. I am NOT.

If someone is a movie critic, she has time for long hours of movies. I am not so I am happy with the little pockets of time here and there to see a movie or two sometimes.

Because I am so drawn to leadership, my schedule daily includes a lot of leadership content so YouTube is a major app for me. Someone else may be drawn to coding and app development so would need to spend time on others apps and all.

If God has called you to study the IG page of a few people for a season, then my sister, you BETTER be on that App, I had a time when I was studying a few of my heroes on IG and gosh, I spent plenty time there. Now, YouTube is my plug BUT I can never forget all those lessons I learned from hours on end on IG and Twitter

Interestingly, after I did that audit and all, I realized I don’t have time to check even one whatsapp status in this season, so I BLOCKED myself from seeing. I don’t know how long this will last, but for now, I need a very clear and unclogged mind to hear God very clearly and not be confused

When I hit the bed at night, I still have tasks yet undone and so I already have my tomorrow planned out for me, and I am exhausted in a sweet way, having squeezed out everything of the day that is ending. I don’t even have time to think about what I am missing or not missing. I am in absolute obedience and commitment to God and all He has told me to do that I don’t have time for side attractions 

So this is how I believe God has called me to handle my time. 

I trust that if something is really important, God will bring it to me.

Otherwise, I am good with not knowing a lot of what we THINK we should know. The fear of missing out is real, but we MUST all win that battle.

We KNOW too much and it keeps us too cluttered to hear God, and that is what satan wants

We MUST do better ‘abeg’

Cheers to letting our hours be DRIVEN by a VISION.

Let me end with Damilola’s ‘gushful’ response to my voice note.

Love & Prayers

Eziaha

Living my BEST life

PS

Funny I set my alarm for 30mins for this blog. I got interrupted at different times to do something domestic and my kids are even all over me as I do this. The timer went off and I added an extra 10mins and I feel like someone on fire. Funny it just went off and I am almost done.

Is my body ‘chuking’ me to check whatsapp and email and YouTube? Yes. But I have to DISCIPLINE myself enough to sit my little ‘rusty dusty’ on this seat and complete this blog because there is a time for SOCIALIZING and this is NOT the time.

PPS

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I really appreciate it.