Life is full of demands. The more our demands, the more we realize time is a rare and fleeting commodity. As demands mount and pressure builds, it is easy to allow the tyranny of the urgent to consume our time and hijack our purpose, pulling us away from our greatest responsibilities: our relationship with God, our family, and friends, our job, our health, etc. However, if we want to live a fulfilled in phase life, we must also be responsible for our why.

For years, I struggled with being a people pleaser, making it difficult for me to say “no.” I learned the hard way that overcommitment can stroke our ego for a little while, but ultimately, our relationships suffer, our spiritual life grows cold, and our determination steadily declines until either someone graciously gives us a wakeup call (which thankfully happened to me) or we crash headfirst into a wall of burnout.

I have heard it said, “If you don’t schedule your time, your time will schedule you.”

When our time schedules us, our schedule is out of phase. Scripture tells us that God has created us for a unique purpose – which is our “why” (Ephesians 2:10). Consequently, when our why is neglected, our life feels incomplete or out of phase.

Getting our schedule in phase gives us the permission we need to say no without guilt and yes even if it is difficult, and frees us up to devote the needed time to God, our family and friends, and our why.

I know from experience this is not easy. When scheduling your time, you will disappoint others, experience false guilt, and be tempted to fill up the newly realized “free time” with more business. However, on the other side of that is a newfound freedom to live a life in phase and full of purpose.