Share This Episode
Family Life Today Dave & Ann Wilson, Bob Lepine Logo

Jordan Raynor: Redeeming Your Time

Family Life Today / Dave & Ann Wilson, Bob Lepine
The Truth Network Radio
September 29, 2022 3:00 am

Jordan Raynor: Redeeming Your Time

Family Life Today / Dave & Ann Wilson, Bob Lepine

On-Demand Podcasts NEW!

This broadcaster has 1259 podcast archives available on-demand.

Broadcaster's Links

Keep up-to-date with this broadcaster on social media and their website.


September 29, 2022 3:00 am

Need strategies to help you dial in your productivity and purpose? Author Jordan Raynor poses ideas to help you deal with distraction, redeeming your time. Show Notes and ResourcesFind resources from this podcast at shop.familylife.com.Find more content and resources on the FamilyLife's app!Help others find FamilyLife. Leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Check out all the FamilyLife podcasts on the FamilyLife Podcast Network

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Delight in Grace
Grace Bible Church / Rich Powell
Focus on the Family
Jim Daly
Cross Reference Radio
Pastor Rick Gaston
Grace To You
John MacArthur

So, do you know what my word for the year was in 2022?

I have no idea. Do you have a word this year? Well, yeah.

I mean, as a preacher, I'd always, the first Sunday of the new year, challenge or encourage our congregation, pick a word that you want God to do in you and through you for this year. So, you picked a word, but you haven't told me I'm your one congregant. I did tell you. You just don't remember.

What is it? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Yes, you are. And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today.

My word for 2022, present. To be fully present in every situation, mostly with people, with you, with our sons and daughter-in-laws, our grandkids, right now in the studio. I mean, be fully there. I feel like you've been doing that. Oh, look at you being Mrs. Encouragement.

No, I'm totally serious because I used to complain about that a lot because you'd always be on your phone and I'd say, oh, we're watching a movie together, but it's really me by myself. But you haven't been doing that. Well, I've been working on it.

Look at you in your word. The reason I bring it up is because the thing that keeps me and probably a lot of us from being fully present is we feel like our schedule is out of control. We're swamped. We can't manage our life. So, I'm in one situation, but my mind is thinking forward or back and I'm not fully there.

Men do that because women do that all the time. We're always somewhere else in our heads. All I know is everybody I know, including me, needs help with our time and our schedule. And we've got the guy in the studio today to help us. Jordan Rayner is back with us. Well, actually, Jordan, this is your first time ever on Family Life Today. Long time listener. First time caller.

I'm here. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I did not know long time listener. Yeah.

I mean, let's qualify long time. But I was just telling you, I was listening to your great episode with my friend John Tyson. I love this show. See, I wasn't fully present, so I didn't even catch that. I heard you say, you know, John, I didn't know you listened to the actual program with him. I listened to the episode, yeah.

Yeah. Well, you've written a book called Redeeming Your Time. And as I read your bio, tell us a little bit about what you've done because your bio is fantastic in terms of all the different sort of jobs you've had. And I don't even understand what a tech... What was the title? A tech what? A serial tech entrepreneur. There you go. Is that the one? Yeah.

What is that? I've spent the vast majority of my career, first 10 years of my career as a tech entrepreneur starting and selling a couple of different companies. And today I create content full time, books, podcasts, et cetera, helping us all connect the gospel to our work. And this book Redeeming Your Time is really just one expression of that mission. If we believe that we have been saved for good works, as Paul talks about in Ephesians 2 10, we should care about redeeming our time because the days are evil, as Paul says in a couple chapters later in Ephesians 5 16.

And so this book is really looking at how do we do that in a peaceful way, in a Jesus-like way, so that we can be purposeful, present, Dave, and wildly productive. Yeah. And you're the guy that redeems the time because you showed up for this interview an hour early.

That's either redeeming the time or just having the wrong time on my calendar. I don't know which one, but yeah. I mean, did you have to drive over from Tampa where you're married with three little girls?

Three little girls, seven, five, and two. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about redeeming the time in a family. Yeah.

What does that look like? Because you've got a crazy life. You've got little kids. Give us a perspective of how do you redeem your time? The subtitle of this book is Seven Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present, and Wildly Productive.

And that middle one, present, is really, I would argue, the most important one with young kids. I would find myself for years when I was running tech startups, you know, at the office, I'd be super focused. I'd be doing, quote unquote, deep work, really, really focused at my desk.

My phone was on do not disturb. And then I would come home and it was a totally different story, right? Yes, Jordan. This is every wife's complaint. Really?

Tell me more. Because we feel like you're home, but you're not home. And I know we do that as women too, especially for carrying our jobs. So you were feeling that.

I was totally feeling this. And by the grace of God alone, I've learned tools and tricks that I share in the book on how to be fully present. And honestly, the most basic one starts with just putting my phone to bed when I get home. Right. So at the end of the day, when I get home at whatever time it is or I can now I work from home. So when I come downstairs at 5 p.m., taking my cell phone and temporarily basically converting it into a landline.

Right. So I put it in our master bathroom. I'll turn the ringer on just in case somebody calls and I need to get to it. But my phone's on do not disturb. So only calls from really important VIPs in my life can come through. But I don't get notified of text messages.

I have no temptation to check Instagram. And I can be fully present with my kids and with my wife. And that one little trick, keeping the phone away from 5 until 730 when the kids are asleep, that's been a game changer for me. Now, you've been I mean, how do you do that? Because I'm listening to that going, there's so much that happens, you know, after five o'clock or so, whenever your your workday is done that, you know, I'm sitting here going a text, an email. There's no way I can be productive, wildly productive. Isn't he your hero?

He's my hero. Well, I'm just thinking, how do you do this? Because I'm guessing you haven't always done this. No.

Everybody wants to do this, but nobody thinks it's possible, right? It's not just an issue of when we're with our kids. It's also when we're at the office.

The way we treat incoming messages, whether they're calls or text messages or emails, is certifiably insane, right? I use the analogy in the book about the mailman, right? I read this. You read this?

This is true, right? Imagine that the mailman starts coming to your house, not one time a day, but 150 times a day. But he doesn't stay at the curb, right?

He gets out of his car. He comes to your front door, rings the doorbell, and you get up from whatever you're doing and grab the mail. Maybe you open it, maybe you don't.

But at a minimum, you're stealing a glance at who it's from. We would check you into an insane asylum. But this is exactly what we're doing with text messages and emails all day. So back to your question, Dave, how do we solve this? How do we take control of when we check messages and not the mailman? Real, real, real simple. Step one, you choose ahead of time when you're going to check your messages.

Very, very simple. And it doesn't matter how many times you're going to check them. If you're in sales or customer service, you're going to have to check your messages a heck of a lot more than I will as a writer.

That's fine. What matters is that you predetermined when you're going to check your messages. Step two, you build a list of VIPs who can have access to you at all times, not just those predetermined times to check messages. So for me, VIPs in my life are my wife, my kid's school, my assistant, my pastor, a few close friends.

That's it. And what I do is if you're an iPhone user, add those people to the favorites list on your phone. If you're an Android user, add them to the people list and then turn your phone on do not disturb so that you will not be notified of text messages from those people. You will not be notified of app notifications. You will only be notified of calls from those people.

Right. So step one, choose when you're going to check your messages. Step two, make a list of VIPs and then step three, you just got to set really clear expectations with the VIPs in your life. Send your family or your friends or your boss or your clients a text, an email that says this. Say, hey, in order to better serve you and my family and my work, I'm only checking messages from here on out at X, Y and Z times. However, Dave, and since you're VIPs in my life, you can get access to me anytime. But do not text message me. Do not email me. Call me on my cell. And if I'm available, I'm going to answer every single time. I've now coached in group coaching situations more than a thousand people through those three steps. Nobody has reported missing anything truly urgent and everybody is reporting doing their work up to twice as fast with a heck of a lot less anxiety. OK, we've got listeners thinking and this is what I would think as a woman.

How do we incorporate this in a home, especially? It's true. We need to first look at ourselves. But then if you feel like, oh, I feel like my husband's never here or I have my teenage kids are constantly on the phones and I don't want to nag them. How do we convince them?

It's such a good question. I've experienced this. I know a lot of others who have. If you start modeling this behavior yourself, though, and you're fully present at the home and you're the one sitting on the couch at night watching the movie, not checking your phone. There is unspoken and I think somewhat healthy guilt seems into other people. Will they notice? A hundred percent. They think they will.

I've experienced that they do. When I'm with my family, for example, I love my father. Dad, if you're listening, you're the greatest. But my dad is always on his phone, has been for many, many years. And he's noticed Jordan is never on his phone around me anymore.

He's fully present. And so now when he's with me, he's trying to be more intentional about putting it away. Same thing with my wife. If this is a challenge in your home with your teenagers, et cetera, start to model it. And I can almost guarantee there's going to be this healthy guilt and shame that's setting in amongst the family.

Then you could talk about it and have an honest conversation about it and show other people how to implement these tools so that they can be fully present with one important thing or person at a time. I like that. And I think I could see myself, even Dave, with you saying, hey, what if we both turned off our phones for two hours tonight and we even took it could be even 10 minutes. And this is so attractive when Dave does this to me, when he'll have nothing before him, his phone's gone, his device, his computer's gone. And he'll just sit across the table and say, how are you doing?

Tell me what's going on. So I think that that's a really good application. Yeah.

And my question is, how long does it take for a guy like me? I'm thinking of your dad. Yeah. You know. You and Tom would get along great.

Yeah, I'm sure we would. I mean, I don't know. I just know that a year or so ago, my seven-year-old granddaughter said, Poppy, you're on your phone all the time. And I looked at her like, what are you talking about? You know, I'm not on my phone that much. And I'm looking over at my wife and she's like shaking her head like, finally, somebody else is saying what I've said. So obviously I have a problem. So even as I'm listening to you, I'm like, put the phone away for two hours?

How is that possible? Because you think I need to see that text. I need to see that email.

I need to know what's the latest ESPN notification. It's like, no, I don't. I don't really do I. But how long would it take for somebody like me? I'm not going to say I'm addicted, but you know. We all are addicted.

To make the change. Can I do it in a week? Can I do it in a month? I've seen many people do this in a week. I was just talking to a reader the other day who went from an average of ten hours a day of screen time. Ten hours a day? To two in a week. That's an enormous life changing change in this person's life.

By the way, the message that full presence, being fully present can communicate to others. As a football guy, you'll love this, Dave. There's this great story about Bill Campbell, who's the greatest executive coach in Silicon Valley history. He was also a peewee football coach, right? And his clients were Steve Jobs, the CEO of Google, the biggest blue chip CEOs in the plane. And he would say there was nothing more appealing and attractive to those kids when they would see a call from Steve Jobs on my cell phone and me ignore it. Those kids knew I loved them and I cared about them. And I was all in on serving them in that moment.

So whether or not your client is Steve Jobs or you're ignoring people from your church or work or whatever, in this day and age, being fully present with our kids and our spouse and our work is one of the most valuable presents we can give to the world and to the people around us. I found it fascinating that you take the life of Jesus and you say, okay, if we're going to redeem our time, let's take a look at how he did that. So let's learn from him.

Where would you start? First, we got to recognize that the gospels, contrary to the way that we typically preach them, are not just there for us to learn theology and ethics. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are biographies of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

He was the author of time who became flesh. How arrogant of us not to think that we can't learn something about how to steward the same 24 hour day by looking at the gospels. And listen, of course, Jesus does not walk around with a to do list in the first century or a smartwatch. But when you read the gospel biographies, they do show Jesus fighting for solitude and dealing with distractions and the temptation not to be fully present. They show him trying to be busy without being hurried.

They're showing him dealing with a lot of the same challenges that we face today. And because he was perfect God, we can assume that he did this perfectly. So that's why I wrote the book The Way I Did. Redeeming Your Time are these seven timeless time management principles from the life of Christ, mapped to more than 30 practical practices that help us walk like he walked today in the 21st century.

And where do we start? We got to start where Jesus started, with the word, right? Jesus prioritized time with the Father, above sleep, above eating, above time with his disciples. And if we want to redeem our time for eternal rather than temporal purposes, we've got to do the same.

What's that look like for you, Jordan? I've experimented a lot here, and I'm always experimenting, always changing it up so it doesn't become rote. But the thing that stuck most consistently for me is Martin Luther's method of Bible study. So he would take a passage of Scripture, and then he would respond to that passage in prayer by writing out four things. Number one, what is the passage instructing me to do? Number two, what is this passage revealing about who God is that I can praise him for? Number three, writing out a confession of where I've fallen short of God's character in the instruction of that passage.

And then finally, number four, just an open-ended ask, asking for the Lord's help to live out that command, to live up to his standards through the power of the Holy Spirit. So I've been doing that off and on for years, and I love it. It just keeps me fully engaged in my time in the Word of the mornings. I find that I get way too distracted if I'm not writing something down after reading Scripture. So that's what's working for me.

But whatever works for you works. What matters is that we are constantly communing with the Father, preaching the gospel to ourselves before we seek to go and be productive throughout the rest of the day. So how does a mom—I'm looking at you because, you know, I know that when our kids were little—and you know, Jordan, you've got three younger kids. How do you make that a priority?

How do you find time to get the Word? You used to run to the bathroom just to get a break, and then they'd knock on the door. They were in the bathroom with me. You too?

Yeah. Yeah, I think that was one of the hardest transitions for me with kids because before having kids, I'd have my journal out, I have my Bible out, and I'm spending time praying, listening, singing. And then I had kids, I'm thinking—and my sister would get up at four thirty in the morning.

And I'm a night person, but having kids, I'd fall asleep at night too. So I just learned how to read God's Word. I had Bibles all over the house. I had them in the car, and I would just—even if I could get just one in, like one verse in, and now it's so great because you can listen to the Word. And your kids are around, but I think I just learned how to be with God in every moment, and I talked to Him all throughout the day. And I try still to get my glimpses and journal a little bit whenever I got that free moment, and that's the temptation.

Like, do I get my work done or do I spend time with God? Because you want to do both, but I would just say, God, I'm going to give you what I have. You're my first offering. I'm going to give you this piece of me, but I learned how to do it on the fly. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I mean, you're the guru of redeeming your time, Jordan. I'll know about that. What's it look like in your home? I mean, you get the little girls, you get your wife, does she get up at four thirty and do it or how's it work? So this was a heck of a lot easier before kids. I know.

Exponentially easier. So a few thoughts. Number one, I do think this looks different in seasons of life.

Me too. Some seasons it could look like spending an hour with the Word every morning. Some seasons it might be reading a verse or reading one day of a devotional plan on you version or something like that.

Secondly, I think at the church, we have really neglected and ignored the science that 30 percent of us are biologically hardwired to be night owls. When we talk about time of the Word, it's always, it's morning obsessed, right? And then you feel guilty. And then you feel guilty.

But this is absurd. Jesus spent time with the Father late at night and very early in the morning. I just can't believe that God cares when exactly we spend time with Him. What matters is that we do it.

And the last thing I would say is that, and this is the answer nobody wants to hear, including myself. At some point, you just got to make a choice and recognize a tradeoff and prioritize this over something that is good, but not as good as spending time with the Father. So I got to give kudos to my wife. She just had to make the choice years ago when we started having kids that, you know what?

We're just going to go to bed earlier, period, so that I can wake up and spend time with my Lord before the little ones start running around the house. Right. So again, that's the answer nobody wants to hear.

But that's the answer for a lot of us. We got to make hard choices, but we also got to make first things first things. And the first thing for Jesus was spending time with the Father. How much more so do we need time with the Father before we go about our days? I just remembered that I had a friend that started praying about this because she was realizing she was a part of our Bible study. And she said, you guys, I know I need to be with Jesus and I just want to sleep in until the kids get up. And so she started praying, Lord, wake me up, wake me up before my alarm goes off or before my kids wake up. And sure enough, she started waking up early.

And I'm sure that then that became a habit. But I love that she just started waking up because God longs to be with us. And I think to make that a priority, people, I am not nice if I'm not with Jesus. If I'm not with Jesus, I'm not nice to my kids. But there's something about, I love it, Jordan, that the Word is the priority, that we're spending time with Him.

He longs to be with us and He'll equip us for the day. And there's plenty of scriptures that talk about how spending time in the Word gives us more time. Now, I don't know that we're to interpret that literally, but I do think it acts as a force multiplier on our time if we think about an eternal impact. Because if I don't know what the Word says, then I don't know what God's priorities are in the world. So I can be, quote unquote, productive at work, but not for eternal things because I don't know what eternal things are.

Because I don't know God and His mission in the world. So again, if we want to redeem our time for eternal purposes, for the things that will last, we got to know God and know what His Word says and know what He's doing in the world and what He wants to do in and through us, acting as His agents of reconciliation in the world. Yeah, and one of the things that just hit me as you were saying that, Jordan, and we talked about this in our book, Vertical Marriage, and we did a recent reignite your marriage little workout, sort of seven-day workout.

And it was this simple. What would happen in your marriage if you spent time with the Lord together? Now, obviously, you want to do it individually, and we're talking about that right now. But if you took, and all we did was say, what if you prayed together every day for a minute?

Could be two minutes, three minutes. But what if it was just a commitment to say, as a married couple, we're going to spend time with the Lord, which is your first principle, first practice, together? Again, I know there's couples listening right now going, do you understand? I can't even do it by myself. What if the last thing you did before you fell asleep was just grab each other and say, let's pray for a minute?

It could literally refocus. Am I right? Yeah, and it's so funny that you say this because this is exactly what my wife and I do. It's like, we're laying in bed, we're exhausted, but we pray real quick together. And I felt a lot of guilt over that. I was like, oh, man, Lord, these prayers are like so lame.

They're so weak. But I do think what you're saying is an encouragement to me, because I do think the simple act of holding hands in bed and recognizing that we are submitting, we're literally laying down before God and submitting our lives to Him as the last thing we do before the day is a powerful but simple message to preach to each other as a couple and to the family. You're listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Jordan Rayner on family life today. Stay with us. Anne's got one more thing to add. But first, Jordan's book is called Redeeming Your Time, Seven Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present and Wildly Productive.

If you or someone you know could use some help with using time. Well, maybe we all can. You can get a copy at familylifetoday.com. Now, you guys remember Bob Lapine, right?

The guy stole this chair from. Yeah, well, he's got a new book out that we're really excited about. It's called Build a Stronger Marriage, The Path to Oneness. It's a great book to go through as a couple or maybe you could even go through it with another couple or a group of couples. It's a chance to grow in your marriage and to help other marriages grow. We'd love to send you a copy with your gift this week at Family Life.

You can give at familylifetoday.com or when you call with your donation at 800-358-6329. That's 800 F as in family, L as in life and then the word today. All right, now here's Ann with one more thought on praying as a couple right before bed. And I'm going to add one more thing and it will help you to sleep better. Is that the things that we're carrying, like we're all carrying things in our minds that are heavy. And a lot of times if we have kids, it's our kids.

Things are going through, the things are facing. And I know that it has helped me a lot to go to sleep when I have prayed. And we have prayed together, Dave, of just saying, Jesus, I give you this child or this grandchild and they're heavy on my heart. So will you? And then I'll just pray quickly. I sleep better at night because I'm not waking up thinking about what can I do?

What should you do? You know, that's really helped us. That's such a great example from Ann, really helpful.

This is going to sound maybe counterintuitive, but what if you're not getting enough done because you're not getting enough rest? Well, Jordan Rayner will be back to talk about just that tomorrow. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
Whisper: medium.en / 2022-12-31 20:50:11 / 2022-12-31 21:01:23 / 11

Get The Truth Mobile App and Listen to your Favorite Station Anytime