Redeeming the Time

The value of time has declined considerably in the eyes of many. Sure, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would actually utter the words “I don’t care about my time” or “I love wasting time”. In truth, however, the vast majority of people throw countless hours away on meaningless or insignificant activities. The average person thinks nothing of plopping down to binge on Netflix (or the latest streaming service) for hours at a time, consuming mindless garbage that not only fails to uplift the mind, but actively works to downgrade it.

I received a sobering lesson at the end of last 2022. I, like most, sit down every year to assess the progress made throughout the year, and map out my goals and plans for the coming year. In my line of work, it is important for me to track my time pretty consistently and accurately throughout the workday. Over the years, however, I’ve become more and more fascinated by the whole prospect of tracking my time, and began expanding the handy work timer software to cover decidedly non-work related activities. It was an intentional, long-range personal study on how I used my time. By the time 2022 rolled around, I found that I was tracking nearly every minute of my life, from my hours at work, to my workouts, to the time that I laid down for brief naps. It’s extremely difficult to capture every second of an entire year, but I feel fairly confident that I was able to track abou 95% of my time for 2022. I should also note that I’m pretty hardcore in my work habits, frequently working 80 hours or more per week, and managing my time pretty tightly even when not working.

As you might imagine, there was a lot of interesting information that was revealed when I did my year-end tally. To me, however, the most interesting piece of information was not how much time I spent in the gym, or at work, or in prayer, but rather, the amount of completely wasted time. And when I said “wasted”, I do not mean time spent lounging with the family watching a movie (valuable), or hanging out with friends (potentially valuable), or even doing mundane chores (not necessarily valuable but still tracked separately). No, when I say “wasted”, I mean activities that were categorized under either “breaks” or “miscellaneous”, meaning I was going absolutely nothing of value during those periods.

The part that was so shocking about that information was the sheer scope of wasted time – over 650 hours of completely unused or underutilized time in 2022. It’s a staggering figure. Think about all the things you could do with 650 hours – master a new language or instrument, start a new business, likely squeeze in 20 books more, spend tons of quality time with family, become Volunteer of the Year, etc. etc. For me, it was time down the drain.

But here’s another interesting part – I’m not a lazy guy. As I mentioned, I work long hours consistently, and generally do not toy around with my time. Which is why is makes sense that, on a weekly basis, my wasted time only amounted to roughly 12.5 hours. Not great, but not horrible either considering the amount of time I spend on meaningful activities each week. However, those 12.5 hours compounded week after week, month after month, eventually lead to nearly 700 hours thrown away by year’s end.

Time is one of the most valuable resources and powerful tools that we as men possess – and it’s non-renewable. In order to make the most of our lives, to serve Christ to the greatest of our abilities, to be the men that our families expect and need us to be, we truly must be intentional about redeeming all the seconds, minutes, and hours that we find. They very quickly turn into weeks, months, years, and legacies.