Redeem your Time
If this is your first experience with CityLead, or your first time reading our CityLead TakeAway, we want to welcome you! Here at CityLead, we believe that by coming together once a month as a business community, we can make each of our cities a better place to live, work, worship, play, and raise a family. In every CityLead session, we look at one of three types of leadership through a Biblical lens: self-leadership, team leadership, and organizational leadership.
Today, we’re talking about time – specifically, how to redeem the time you already have. This isn’t about finding more hours in the day. It’s about reclaiming the hours you’re already losing.
Resources referenced in this session include Redeeming Your Time (which includes a faith component) and Becoming Time Rich (a business-focused resource).
The Reality of Time
Here’s a question: If someone offered you more money or more time, which would you take?
Most people say time. But here’s the truth: No one can give you more time. There is no more time to give. We all have the same 24 hours, the same 168 hours each week.
You can get more money. You cannot get more time.
So if you want more time, you have to reallocate it. You have to redeem it – ransom it back from the things that are currently wasting it.
Today, we’ll look at five ways to do exactly that.
1. Let Your Yes Be Yes
You must ensure that your yes is your yes – from the smallest to the biggest commitments you make. Don’t promise what you can’t do or what you shouldn’t do.
A primary source of anxiety, stress, and lost time is the number of open loops in your life.
An open loop is any commitment you’ve made to do something in the future for someone else:
- “Hey, will you call me tomorrow?” Yes. That’s an open loop.
- “Can you send me that information?” Sure. That’s an open loop.
- “Would you be willing to help with this project?” Absolutely. Another open loop.
We accumulate open loops throughout our days and weeks – and then at 2 a.m., we lie awake wondering: How many did I commit to? What did I forget? How am I going to do all of this?
Practice: Choose a consistent and organized workflow to maintain your commitments.
It doesn’t matter if you use paper, your phone, your iPad, or your watch. Pastor Bill shares the story of meeting the largest private landowner in metropolitan Detroit – a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars – who ran his entire operation on an analog paper filing system. When asked why, he said: “I started with a pickup truck and a box of tools. I think I can do it the way I want.”
The method doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have a system – and that you use it. Because every time you say, “Where did I write that down?” or “What did I promise her?” you’ve wasted energy, created anxiety, and lost time.
2. Fight to Block Out Noise
You must fight to block out noise and create room for silence, stillness, and reflection.
Here are five ways noise limits your ability to redeem time:
It limits your ability to think.
A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. You can know too much. You don’t need to consume every piece of news, every trending topic, every update. Let other people curate your information – they’ll tell you what you actually need to know.
It limits your ability to be creative.
Aaron Sorkin – the writer behind The West Wing, Moneyball, and more – describes the night his career began: He was broke, alone, in a tiny apartment with a broken TV and stereo. The only thing he could do was put paper in his typewriter and start typing. He stayed up all night writing.
“It was pure boredom,” he said, “and I feel like that night has never ended.”
It was through silence – not noise – that he found his calling.
It limits your ability to have depth.
We’ve talked about this often at CityLead. Constant noise keeps us skimming the surface of life, never going deep.
It limits your ability to be at peace.
Three things happened in 2007:
- Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.
- America began a ten-year, 59% decrease in productivity compared to the previous decade.
- Anxiety and mental health issues exploded globally – especially among teenagers.
The timing is no coincidence. The rising volume of noise is making us less productive and significantly more anxious.
It limits your ability to listen.
By noise, we don’t just mean loudness – we mean fullness. The constant filling of every moment with input. We need margin to truly hear.
Practice: Filter your content. Be selective. And put the quiet back in your quiet time.
Many of us claim to take quiet time – but we fill it with music, podcasts, or scrolling. That’s not quiet. Create space for actual silence so you can listen and hear.
3. Decide What Matters Most
You must discover what matters most and allow those choices to prioritize your commitments.
What you should do is not the same as what I should do. Setting goals is as much about deciding what not to do as it is about what to do.
Understand your strengths, your calling, your personal mission, and your vision.
Pastor Bill shares his own journey in 90 seconds:
- In second grade, he learned he wasn’t an artist.
- In third grade, he knew he wouldn’t be an Olympian – he came last in running.
- In fourth grade, a concert pianist teacher fired him as a student.
- In fifth grade, he won the school award for geography and history.
- In eighth grade, complex math and science showed him he wouldn’t be a doctor, scientist, or engineer.
- In tenth grade, he discovered he could teach.
- In twelfth grade, he knew he could lead.
- In college, he loved learning but didn’t want to be an academic.
- In business school, he loved numbers but didn’t want to be an accountant or banker – so he went into real estate and investments.
- Because he loved people and loved God, he became a pastor for twenty years.
- Now, he coaches and inspires leaders.
Every step built on the last. He knows who he is – and who he isn’t. So when someone asks him to be a CFO, the answer is no. That’s not his gifting. But CEO? That’s a different conversation.
Practice: Do everything you can to understand your mission in life.
We are too old – whether 35, 45, 55, or 65 – to still be wondering what we’re supposed to be doing on this earth. Every day is one less day. Redeem it.
4. Be Fully Present
You must be fully present and focus on meaning – not just activity.
Here are five enemies of depth:
1. External distractions.
Some people are like rabbits – constantly hopping from one thing to the next. Hey, let’s do this! Now let’s do that! They’re everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
2. Fake productivity.
We think we’re getting so much done – but much of it is meaningless. Busyness is not the same as effectiveness.
3. Quick highs.
Some of us love the adrenaline rush of closing a deal, solving a problem, or helping someone. We go from high to high to high. But that’s not presence – that’s addiction to activity.
4. The savior complex.
We start believing we can solve everyone’s problems. But there’s only one Savior – and it’s not us. Find what you’re good at and help those people. Don’t spread yourself so thin that you help no one.
5. The need to be omnipresent.
Multitasking is a myth. You can only be in one place at a time. Be uni-present – fully present where you are. At dinner with your kids? Be there. In a meeting? Be there. Stop letting notifications pull you in ten directions.
Practice: Take control of your schedule. Block time for deep work each week.
Deep work is time blocking – scheduling hours where you do focused, uninterrupted work. No emails. No texts. No notifications.
If you need a system for emergencies, create one. Pastor Bill and his wife have a code: if she calls three times in succession, he answers no matter what. But a single call about dinner plans? That can wait until deep work is done.
When you’re interrupted during deep work, you don’t just lose the moment – you lose the mental energy required to get back to where you were. Protect your focus.
5. Eliminate Hurry
You must be productive while ruthlessly eliminating hurry from your life.
Hurry is the great enemy of our ability to be purposeful, present, and productive. Yes, some things require speed. But don’t be so hurried that you miss what matters.
Four questions to ask before saying yes to an opportunity:
1. Is this opportunity aligned with my goals?
There are many great things happening in this world that you should not be a part of. Not because they’re bad – but because they’re not yours to do. Figure out what your money, your time, your volunteerism, your staff, and your family should be a part of.
2. Who is this a great opportunity for?
When someone says, “This is a great opportunity,” ask yourself: for whom? Usually, it’s a great opportunity for the person doing the asking – they want you to help fulfill their goals. That’s not necessarily wrong, but be aware of it. Don’t let others constantly redirect your focus.
3. Am I trying to do good or make myself look good?
Even doing good can be tainted by pride. Make sure you’re not just helping others so they’ll praise you for it. Humility matters.
4. What will I say no to if I say yes to this?
Every yes is a no to something else. Every no creates space for a different yes. Be intentional.
Practice: Learn to say a generous no.
“No” is a complete sentence – but it doesn’t feel that way to the person hearing it. So decline generously.
If it takes two minutes or less, help the person right then. Say no to the big ask, but offer a quick connection: “I know someone who might be able to help. Let me text them and put you two together.”
That takes 90 seconds. You’ve helped them, you’ve closed the loop, and you haven’t added to your anxiety. Months later, they may thank you for a connection you barely remember making.
The Story of Elizabeth
Pastor Bill closes with a powerful story.
Two years ago, he kept hearing about a remarkable woman from two separate friends – a conference speaker, a board member, a thought leader. When he finally saw her picture, he realized: it was someone he and his wife Elizabeth had known 30 years earlier. Back then, she was a stay-at-home mom with two small children, living across the street.
When they reconnected, the woman said to Elizabeth: “You changed my life. Everything I’m doing now is because of you.”
She explained: “Remember every afternoon when I’d bring my two little boys over, and you’d give me coffee and just build into my life? You were a stay-at-home mom. I was a stay-at-home mom. And you invested in me.”
Years later, when her kids started school, she went back into business. Now she’s at the top of her field. And the opening line of her new book? “There was a woman named Elizabeth who changed my life.”
Here’s the point: When you redeem your time, you will have time to help other people. And when you help other people, the impact is exponential.
You have no idea what will happen when you invest in someone – younger or older, peer or stranger. But if you’re too busy, too filled with noise, too hurried to make time for others, you’ll never know.
Reflection Questions
- What would you do if you had more time? What’s stopping you from reallocating time toward that right now?
- How many open loops do you currently have? What system could help you manage them?
- Where is noise crowding out silence in your life? What would it look like to put the quiet back in your quiet time?
- Do you know your mission in life? Can you articulate it in 90 seconds?
- What’s one opportunity you need to say a generous no to – so you can say yes to something more aligned with your purpose?
We hope you took something valuable away from today’s CityLead session. Identify your top takeaway – and decide what you’re going to do about it today. Not tomorrow. Today.
We can’t wait to see you at the next one!
