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Show Notes:

“And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” -2 Corinthians 9:8. Today, we’re going to talk about abundance, we’re going to talk about stewardship, and we’re going to talk about how I batch my time.

For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.

Okay, this verse is so good, and it means so much to me that I have considered having it tattooed on my body. I don’t have any tattoos, but I’ve always thought, you know, if there’s ever a verse that I would get a tattoo of, it’s this because it is something that I think I need to be reminded of daily.

First, that God blesses me abundantly, and that in all things, at all times, having all that I need, I will abound in every good work. I think that speaks to so many different things. Honestly, the verse speaks for itself and I pray that it just encourages you today right where you are. But for me, it reminds me that God has blessed me so abundantly and that no matter where I find myself in life, no matter what season I’m in, no matter if it’s a good day or a hard day or a bad day, no matter if I feel like I have a lot going for me or if I feel like everything is against me, this is still true. God’s presence equals abundance, and He is with me. He blesses me not only with His presence, but a lot of other good things too, so that in all things, at all times, having all that I need, I will abound in every good work. So His abundance is channeled to me through all these different things so that I can abound in every good work. This is to fuel my work and our work and the Kingdom’s work.

So I want to encourage you that this is not a scarcity verse. This is not a hold on, hang in there kind of verse, even though there are plenty of great verses like that in the Bible. This verse is declaring God’s abundance over your life, over your work, over your time. I think that we underlive this verse. I underlive this verse, which is why I would truly consider having it tattooed on my body, because it’s reminding me of His abundance, and I just forget about that.

Here’s what I want to be clear about because I think abundance can get confusing or twisted in our culture. Biblical abundance is not about having more than you need so that you can hoard it. It’s not this prosperity gospel promise that God is going to make your life easy and give you everything that you ask for. Abundance, as Paul describes it here is having all that you need so that you can abound in every good work. Abundance is for the work. It is to bless others. It is given so that we can be generous, fruitful, and purposeful. It flows into our life, and it flows out of our life.

So if God has given us abundance, whether it’s time, material things, you name it, whatever it is, what does that mean? It means we have enough. We have what we need. But it also means that we’re called to steward it well and to move the Kingdom forward because of the gifts that He has given us and for it to flow through us so that we can be generous. Abundance is not passive. It calls for stewardship.

So I kind of want to break this podcast episode into three parts. First, this declaration of abundance in this Bible verse that God has given us. Second, this call for stewardship that abundance also comes with. Then third, a very practical way that I steward my time and my life and my work, and that is through batching my things, my time, my work, my to-do list. So we’ll get to that.

We’ve talked about abundance. Now I want to talk a little bit about stewardship. It reminds me of that verse, I’m sure you’ve heard it. “To whom much is given, much is required.” Luke 12:48. “To whom much is given, much is required.” When we have been given a lot, when the Lord has been so gracious to us and we look around in our lives and we have abundance, there’s something required of us and that’s to steward it well.

Now for me, stewarding can look a lot of different ways. I’m sure the same for you. Stewardship, I think stewarding our time well, stewarding our gifts and what God has gifted us with well, using our gifts and stewarding our finances well, us stewarding our marriages well and our relationships well. It applies to so many different areas of life. But I think sometimes people look at stewardship, or like for me, the structures and rhythms and things that I have set up in my life, and they think, that feels restrictive. That feels like too much discipline or too much rhythm, or like I want some freedom. To me, that stewardship and those rhythms that I set up actually is freedom. Like it feels like freedom when I have that structure and a plan. When I know how I’m spending my time and I have prioritized well, I know that I’m not constantly reacting to life, and I’m not running behind or I’m not just like putting out fires all the time. Let me be clear. I have days like that. 100%. I have days like that. We are human. I am human. Things go off plan often with my kids, with my plans. That’s just it. But the structure and rhythms act as this guardrail that keeps me on the path that I want to be on, which I believe is just my desire to steward my time and talent and things and finances well to the glory of God so that I can walk out this verse. That is my prayer, at least. I’m not saying I do it perfectly, but that’s my prayer.

That’s what I want to encourage you with today. I just want to ask you, if God has blessed you in some way or another, how are you stewarding the time that God has given you? I’m asking myself that too because I know for me, sometimes it means cramming more in, or like, that’s what I try to do in my flesh. I’m like, let me do more. That’s not always it. That’s not always stewarding it well. It’s about being intentional with the limited time and limited things that we have. But it’s abundance. It’s what He’s already given us and already placed in our hands.

So I want to encourage you, God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. I want to encourage you and remind you and challenge you that to whom much is given, much is required.

So let’s get practical. Now that I’ve encouraged you in just stopping today and realizing all the goodness from God’s hand in your life and realizing that comes with a call for stewardship, I want to share a very practical way I do this and this is batching. Batching my time, batching my tasks, batching my errands. Yes. So batching means grouping similar tasks together and doing them in a dedicated block of time rather than scattering them throughout your day or week. We know this to be true. Every time you switch tasks, your brain has to reorient. It has to catch up and you lose time. You lose energy. Decision fatigue is so real. That is what kills me the most, is I just can’t make another decision. You lose the thread of what you’re doing, what you’re thinking when you’re constantly jumping back and forth between tasks. I’m interrupted enough with my precious kiddos, so batching parts of my life has really helped me streamline things.

So your life is full. My life is full. Let’s talk about a few ways that I batch my to-dos and my things, practically speaking. First, meals. I always plan for the week on Sunday and I place a giant grocery order to be delivered to our house. There have been seasons in my life where I could not afford grocery delivery and I would go do the shopping or I would place an Instacart pickup order because that was cheaper or whatever. It’s whatever your season, but I highly recommend that you plan for the whole week and do it all in one day so that you have everything. This just removes so much from my mental load.

Another thing that I’ve started to do… this is kind of in the same vein with batching. I have written out two weeks of meals and we eat those things on repeat. Judge me if you need to, that’s fine, but that has simplified my shopping and it has simplified my brain. Guess what? My family kind of likes the same meals over and over again. Every once in a while I’ll try something new, but that is one way that I’ve batched meal planning in my life.

Okay, for work, I have a very specific day that I have childcare each week, and that is the day that I do my content planning, my emails, my recording of this podcast. Sometimes during the week, I don’t do all of those things in that day. So sometimes that day will only be for recording, and I will just record all my podcast episodes for the month in one day. Sometimes it will be an admin day and I’m just focused on emails and finances, checking on the back end of things, making sure my subscriptions are up to date and just kind of cleaning out the clutter of work and corresponding with people. Some days it’s just content planning and I’m just writing the content for these episodes or I’m writing the content for Instagram or I’m just writing just to fill up my heart and I don’t even share it, but I’m just in that mode of creating content. So I batch my work by scheduling it for one day a week, but then I actually batch the tasks within my work so that I get in like a certain flow or like a certain work mode, and I find that I’m much more efficient that way. Another thing that I’ve done in this podcast is I’ve started batching interview days. So I’ll book an extra day with a babysitter in the month and I’ll do like two or three interviews back to back and that has really helped a lot as well.

Okay, another area that I batch is my errands. I plan to drop off the kids at school and then I go pick up our raw milk and then I’ll go to Sam’s Club or get gas or pick up mail for Will or I’ll do whatever, like all my errands in one fell swoop. Return library books, whatever it is, go to the UPS store, do some Amazon returns, like all while I am out and about in one trip. That really helps. Now, sometimes I need to get back and the baby has to sleep, and I’ll just try for another day. Life happens. But it’s really helpful if I can do it all at once.

Then lastly, I will batch my deep focus time. A lot of times, this looks like early morning hours for me, and I will get up, like sometimes I’ll get up at 4:30 or 5:00. I usually don’t get up at 4:30 because I want to, but sometimes Winnie will wake up crying and I’ll nurse her and I just can’t go back to sleep. So I’ll do some like serious deep work, I don’t know, between the hours like 4:30 and 7:30 before the kids get up.

The point is, it does not have to be that early. I know some of you are like, “Ah!” it does not have to be that early. It can be any time, but just protecting time, setting aside time to do that deep work of like dreaming, wrestling with God, writing out what you want, asking Him things, and then taking the time to do the thing, like write or draft some things. You know what I mean. Getting in that mode of creation and creating that just calls for a really deep focus and deep work. To me that is such fulfilling work. I love it.

Side note : That book by Cal Newport is excellent. Deep Work. It’s really, really good. I love that book.

Okay, when you batch… those were just a few examples from my life. You can do this in so many different areas of your life. But when you batch, I really believe you’re honoring the Lord. Like, you’re honoring the Lord, you’re stewarding your time. You’re working in these focused bursts. You’re not switching. Then you can rest and then you can repeat.

I’ll be honest, batching my work not only makes me better at work, but it makes me better at play because I have that time set aside, and I can work really hard. Then when that time is up, I am able to totally turn off work and go play and get outside and be with the kids or do whatever I want to do. I feel like it’s so fulfilling to be able to work hard and then to be able to play hard too.

Okay, the last thing I want to share about batching. I guess this is kind of a way to look at batching, but it is how I view my week. I view each day of my week as a theme. Like Mondays are my admin days. They are prep for the weekdays. They are like, you know, if I need to food prep anymore, they’re just like, it’s like a getting ready for the week kind of day. I have Benji and Winnie at home with me while the other kids are in school. I’ll do some work, but it’s like a setup for the week kind of day.

Tuesday, we have learning pod and gymnastics and dinner, and like that is it. It is a full-on mom day, homeschool day. Wednesdays is my work day. That is like my work day and like I said, I switch between those different work focuses. Thursday, I am all in with homeschool. On Thursday and Friday, we have piano lessons, we finish homeschool, and then we do Sabbath prep. Saturday is Sabbath. Sunday is our family day where we go worship together at church, and then we work together as a family and we get the house ready for the week. We do laundry and a lot of things. So I think batching your days in a way really helps as well. Like that mindset really helps me a lot.

This is gonna be the last random thing I’m gonna mention, but there’s this new app that I found and it’s called Tiimo? I don’t know. I’m going to be honest. I was served an Instagram ad and I clicked on it and this is one of those that I am so glad I clicked on. It is a visual scheduling and time management app. While I love my planner, I will write out everything for the week in my planner. In the morning, I will get my Tiimo app, we’ll just call it Tiimo, I don’t know. I just talk to it, and I’m like, listen, this is everything that I’ve got to do today. So it has this AI element in there where I just talk to it and I explain my whole day and I tell it what times I’m doing things and all the things I’ve got to do. I just brain dump right into this app. It sets up my routines. It blocks my time. It helps me with transitions. It reminds me to drink water. It is great. It doesn’t feel like this rigid task manager. Every time I check off a box, it sends me this little confetti. It’s like this supportive app that I have been texting my sister about and I’m like, I love this. I can see my morning, my work time, family time, rest time. Then it’ll remind me to start winding down. It’s really great.

So if you’re looking for some sort of app or time management thing to try, I’d encourage you. You can get the free version. You can upgrade if you want, but it’s free and it’s been something that’s just really helped me. T-I-I-M-O, you can find it in the app store.

Okay, so here’s what I want you to walk away with today. God has abundantly blessed you and that includes your time. You have what you need to do all that He has called you to do. That is His promise. Part of living in that abundance is stewarding your time with intention and batching is one way that I do that. So you can use the Tiimo app or something else. You can use your planner. You can use a sheet of paper and a marker. It doesn’t matter. But taking charge of your time is, I think, a way that we can steward our abundance well.

Now, you know that I have this thing called the Rhythms Reset. It is a private podcast that you can download. Five episodes long. That is it. This is the bigger framework that I use to plan my quarters. So I plan 12 weeks at a time and I’m about to start it again because we are wrapping up March, which is crazy. But did you know that every 12 weeks, there’s actually this 13th week? I use that 13th week to reset and replan for the next 12 weeks? I just wanted to mention that because if you have never done that, I think it’s worth a shot. You can go to the link in the show notes to go check out the Rhythms Reset if you want to. I have it on my website also, nancyray.com/rhythms-reset if you want to look into it. But my encouragement is just go check it out if you need help planning the next quarter to get really clear on some time management and your priorities. I’m really excited to do it for Q2. I feel like I’ve gotten kind of off in Q1 and that’s the beauty of it. It’s like there’s this reset right here about to happen. Q2 is coming and I think it could really help you.

So I want to encourage you. I’ve given a lot of things for you to consider today, but you don’t have to use all those things. You don’t have to use any of them. Here’s what I want you to ask yourself. Even if you don’t batch your time, if you don’t use the app or whatever. I want you to ask yourself, “Am I treating my time and the gifts that God has given me like the abundance that it is? Or am I living like I never have enough?” Because you do have enough. God said so.

Friend, I hope this episode just encourages your heart. Not only encourages you in the Lord, but I hope it gives you some practical tools to consider because those two things are not separate. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives and God has given us good days to spend well.

Thanks for listening to episode 309 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray. Everything I’ve mentioned today can be found in the show notes at nancyray.com/podcast/309 and you can find me at nancyray.com or follow me at @nancyray on Instagram.

I’m going to close with words from Elisabeth Elliot, who said,

“The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem much worse, but in the end, it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.”

I love that because it reminds me that His plan for our days is always more abundant than we imagine, even when it doesn’t look like it yet.

Thanks so much for listening and I’ll catch you next week.

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