We need to become a good Stewards!
Do you also know that feeling of overwhelm? Of being so busy, that you don’t know where to start. This is a tough place to be. We ought to be more careful with what we agree to do and what we plan in our day.
The biggest challenge is to get much done during the day, but also have enough time and energy for the family time. If we are completely exhausted by the time we get home and move to the family time – that we can’t even focus anymore – we have done something wrong in the day.
I know that there are times, where we can’t change this. There will be times in our lives, where we just need to get something done. So we pay the price of not having enough energy for our family. We do so knowingly and with purpose.
Ideally this should set us up to have more energy and time later with them. And it should be only for a short time.
We have only limited resources at our hands.
We should be careful with where we spend those resources.
We should be guarding our resources.
It helps to think of this resource as borrowed. We are only the Stewards set in place to use the resources wisely, but we need to own up to the Owner of them later.
We need to justify our use of the resource.
So let’s take a closer look on those resources.
The resources in our life:
If we take a closer look on what we have available in our life, it usually comes down to this.
There are three key resources in our life.
- Time
- Energy
- Money
There might be a few more that come to mind, but in my experience most of them can be traced back to either on of the above.
You might have employees in your business. You might think that they are a resource.
Sure, but they are using up your money.
You might have nice house or office building. You can use those for social events.
Sure, but in the end you need to pay money for the upkeep and spend time there.
You might have Services or Software. These can speed things up for you.
Sure, but in the end you pay money for them and need to use time to work with them.
In essence all comes down to those three key resources.
Time
Time is probably the most valuable resource you have available.
It is the one resource that won’t come back.
Once you spend the hours of the day, they are gone.
The sad reality is, that we often value money more than our time.
We are sitting on the couch procrastinating.
Which might not cost us money, but it costs us time.
Energy
Energy is our physical and mental capacity to work and be active.
Time and Energy are very similar.
You can’t spend one without the other.
The core difference lies in the matter that you need to do something to gain Energy to spend.
Time is set. There are 24 hours in a day. 7 days a week. 52 weeks in a year.
Those don’t change.
Energy does change.
We need to sleep → to gain energy back
We need to eat → to gain energy back
We need to move → to gain energy back
Energy can be spend in two ways:
We can use it for mental work → Most knowledge work is mental energy.
If we talk, listen or read and write → This consumes mental energy.
If we want to be present with our family → It consumes mental energy.
The other way we can use energy is physical energy.
When we work with our bodies → It will take up our physical energy.
This can be our actual job → Most blue collar work consumes physical energy.
Or we can do workouts and sports → This consumes physical energy.
We are spending energy deciding what we do → Some also call that Willpower.
Sure, but there is more to it. We will come back to this at some point.
Energy is important, because we can’t use our time wisely – without the help of our energy.
This is why we need to look at our energy level.
It can rise and fall. We can rest and we can spend.
Money
Money might be the most known resource in our lives.
We spend a lot of time talking, working, spending money.
We pay close attention to how much money we make, we spend and we need.
We feel the most insecure about how much money we have.
In many ways money is the most tracked resource in our lives.
The good part about money is, that we can always earn more.
Money works as an exchange resource.
With money we can buy others time for services.
With money we can buy others energy to help us.
With money we can buy tools to gain us time and energy.
It is interesting, because money holds value that we can exchange.
Therefore it is a useful resource.
Sadly many put money up way to high. They overvalue it.
Money in itself doesn’t hold value.
It only holds resource for the future, but money in itself doesn’t gain us anything.
We should be careful with the way we see money.
It is yet just another resource and the easiest to gain overall.
We can lose money, but we can also get it back.
That’s the main difference to time and energy.
Why Stewardship matters:
You can be depleting yourself.
We can run ourselves into the ground. We chase money, because it hold value for the future.
But we forget to manage our Time and Energy wisely.
By the time we have money, we don’t have Time left for the important things in life.
By the time we have money, we don’t have Energy left to actually do something else.
This is where we need to become good Managers of our resources.
With a family, we want to spend more Time and Energy and Money with them.
This means that we need to be more effective with the resources we spend elsewhere.
This is where these three domains of resource management come into play:
- Time Management
- Personal Finance
- Energy Management
Simple steps to get good at managing our Resources:
Since we only have a limited amount of resources at our hands.
We should aim to become masters of resource Management.
We should aim to become good stewards of our resources.
Blunty: We need to become effective with our resource use. We shouldn’t waste them!
How to Time Manage
To procrastinate is to waste our Time Resource.
Stop procrastinating is the first step to Wise Time Management.
Knowing our priorities is the second most helpful step.
If we know what we need to focus on – we understand where we need to allocate our Time.
Doing what you know needs to be done – That is the way to win the day.
This is the easy To-Do List for the day.
I assume you know what you should be doing right now.
Don’t wait around, just do it.
Eat the frog first thing in the morning!
Do the most important and urgent task first thing in your day.
That will give you the Energy for the rest of the day.
It is the Momentum to fuel your Day with Victories!
How to Personal Finance
To know where your money comes and goes is a super power.
It will give you much peace and juice for decision making.
It is time to really get Personal Finance Literate
First thing: Know how much you have!
Take a day to sort things out.
Figure out how much you have:
- Coming in each month
- In savings
- In investments
Second: Know how much your spending!
The second thing is to know how much your actually spending right now.
This will shed a lot of light into your Personal Finances.
Third: Cut the Costs!
The goal should be that you are spending less than what you are making.
So cut all expenses that you shouldn’t spend.
Make sure to have a little extra money left at the end of the month.
Fourth: Fill the Rainy Day Piggy
The Rainy Day Piggy is your savings account for the hard times.
There will be always time coming, where you need a little extra money.
Where the car breaks down or where you need to fix the dishwasher.
This stash of extra money is to help you not to go in debt.
Fifth: Cut the Debt out of your life!
Get rid of all the Debt that is not helping you in your life.
I’m assuming most of your debt will be not helpful debt.
Try to pay it back the fastest way possible.
How to Energy Manage
The last Resource we will take a closer look at is our Energy!
There is only so much energy we have – so we need to become Effective Energy Managers!
This is probably the toughest part. Because energy is hard to measure.
We can track Time and Money, but Energy is much more an emotional state as it can also change throughout the day.
The biggest Change you can make is to get good sleep.
Sleep is the most helpful way to recover our bodies and mind.
We gain back a lot of energy, when we sleep right.
This starts with the evening routine.
To me this is the most fascinating. Start thinking of your Evening after dinner as the start of the next day!
That shift in thinking will allow you to make decisions for your tomorrow way sooner.
You will outpace everybody, if you start taking care of your evening.
You will set a good bed time routine.
This will allow you to sleep better.
The second thing is to eat right.
If you don’t fuel your body with the right food, you won’t get the right energy.
The topic of energy also has a lot to do with yourself.
It has to do with how we take care of our Body, Mind and Soul.
