For many people, the way they spend their time isn’t consistent from week to week or even month to month. Some people are bi-vocational or have a trans-local ministry that requires more time during one season and less during another. They may have two or three different hats they’re wearing.
The principle to follow is to set your priorities and then have a calendar that reflects those priorities. Doing that allows you to proactively protect the time you have set aside for the most important things. Dr. Grant Howard, who wrote Balancing Life’s Demands: A New Perspective on Priorities, recommends placing all of your biblically significant relationships and priorities on a time scale. What blocks of time do you need in order to meet your responsibilities to those people? Proactively scheduling time that reflects your priorities and then tenaciously protecting those blocks of time can help you live in line with what is truly important.
When something else comes up– even if it’s a good thing– you have a previous commitment on your calendar. You have the choice of moving that commitment but not eliminating it. Only with great reluctance and a strong sense of the Spirit is it supposed to be eliminated. More often than not we’re feeling peer pressure or want to look good and want to make others happy, but we still need to do what God wants us to do in line with our priorities.