Time Management and Holy Living

I’m currently reading Wesley and the People Called Methodists by Richard P Heitzenrater. I’ve registered for my next Wesley / Be A Disciple class for the Wesley Academy for Advanced Christian Studies.   My experience with these classes is that they do not require a large amount of outside reading, but by adding an optional book reading to the class, I greatly enhance my experience and learning. 

Anyway, today I read this:  "Jeremy Taylor provided one of the most crucial suggestions that Wesley adopted: the first rule of holy living is care of your time."

I’ve known for a while that John Wesley kept a diary of the use of his time (among other things).  Also, one of the historical questions is:

“Will you observe the following directions? A) Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away time; neither spend any more time at any one place than is strictly necessary. B) Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. And do not mend our rules, but keep them; not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.” 

I’ve never really considered why Wesley placed such a value on managing his time until I read the first sentence I quoted: the first rule of holy living is care of your time.

How aware are we of how we spend our time?  I manage my time at work with the goal (in my mind) of both being aware of the goals/tasks I need to accomplish that day, prioritizing them, and then managing my time in order to accomplish them.  That’s not working toward holy living, but it’s what I consider to be time management.

But how often do we say, “I would do that, but I just don’t have the time.”  Are we aware of how we spend our time? Do we prioritize holy living? Time in prayer and study? Time in service?

I for one do not think it is healthy to always be pushing to get things done.  We all need down time.  That said, do we prioritize our time for holy living? It’s an interesting question to me.