This chapter is all about controlling your time. How are you doing in that respect? I could certainly do better.

Ortlund’s words in this chapter feel current and relevant. She uses ‘time leaks’, but I have no doubt she’d understand ‘time suck’ and point to Social Media as an obvious one. Her advice sounds familiar: identify bad habits and ‘time leaks’, only handle a piece of paper once, read the important stories in the paper (yes, gentle reader, this book dates to a time when people actually read the news in hard copy), and keep a calendar by the phone (back when your phone was stationary) and a notebook in your purse.

Her notebook sounds like a forerunner of the modern Bullet Journal. I started using the Bullet Journal system in January, and it’s been fabulous and for all the reasons Ortlund describes. 1) I don’t have to remember things. 2) I can see what’s coming and better control my pace. 3) It prevents time wasting and limits (note, I don’t say eliminates) procrastination. 4) It helps me prioritize. The other thing she lists (her number 3) is that she “can see at a glance whether [her] life is important enough”, that she’s “being a good steward” and “using her gifts” (Ortlund, Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman, 64-5). I hadn’t thought of that, but I see her point. My bullet journal is a record, an accounting if you will, of my time. I flipped through it before starting this post, and I don’t love what I see.

So my challenge for the week is to keep an account of my minutes and see how I’m using my time. I’ll post the results next week.