The problem of increasing margin in our health and energy, relationships, and resources can be conquered in a few ways.

One way is to have a mindset shift. Are you investing or spending your energy, time, and resources?*

Why the Investing vs. Spending affects margin…

Investing vs. spending affects margin simply because one produces while the other depletes or wastes. This principal is easy to think about financially, but it applies across the the other areas of our lives.

If you invest or save money, you begin to build financial margin. If you spend everything you have, then you quickly deplete your resources and have little to no margin should a major financial event befall you.

More subtly, when we purchase products and services, we could be investing or spending the money. I could buy a book that sits on my shelf unread. That’s spending. Or I could buy the book – let’s say a book on Christian living, read it, apply the truths, and become better for it. That’s investing.

The same thing happens in our health and relationships.

We can spend a relationship – using the folks around us for whatever it is we think we need from them: strokes, their financial resources, etc. Or we can invest in relationships, creating connection and growing the value of those relationships to both parties and nearly always others in the process.

Also, we can spend our energy and health through poor eating, bad sleep habits, and lack of exercise. Or we can invest it by better choices in these areas. When we need to have energy and focus and attention, if we invest, we’ll have these things at the ready.

A quick note before it seems like I’m being a Dudley Downer. We’re all allowed to spend. But we need to keep our ratio of investing to spending in proper proportion in order to build the margin we need.

A case study in investing vs. spending time…

Yesterday, I used my time in a few different ways.

First, I did research on YouTube about erosion control and dug a trench in my yard to move forward a drainage system project.

Second, I went to my parents’ house with my wife and daughter in order to drill holes in commercial toilet paper rolls that had no middle holes so we could dispense said toilet paper more easily in our house. The COVID pandemic encouraged us to panic buy industrial sized toilet paper rolls from Office Depot.

Third, after helping prepare dinner, I watched TV for about 4-5 hours with my wife and daughter (The Office) and then one of my sons (Agents of SHIELD).

This morning, not to be overly navel-gaze-ish, I’m asking myself:

Did I spend my time or did I invest my time?

The short answer is that I did a little of both.

How do you know if you’re investing or spending?

It’s not always about the activity

The activity itself doesn’t always determine whether time is spent or invested. Watching TV with one of my boys might be well-invested time together enjoying a show we both appreciate and can discuss.

Conversely, if I’m mindlessly wandering around my yard digging trenches without a plan, then that very well could be wasted spent time that does little besides getting me some fresh air.

It’s more about purpose

Did I use the time to serve a purpose? That’s the question to ask.

Watching TV with my family could very well serve the purpose of creating more shared moments. My daughter, wife, and I sitting on the couch laughing and goofing off together isn’t a bad way to invest an hour or so.

I could have wasted the whole time thumbing through social media. Time spent. Not invested.

If I had watched the shows while zoning out on my phone, I would have depleted my relationship accounts, reducing margin in my relationship with my daughter and wife.

As the old idea goes – you don’t eat a bacon double cheeseburger and immediately die of a heart attack, but a steady diet of those will get you there soon enough.

I can check my phone here and there, but if I spend every TV session scrolling around my phone, then how do you think, over time, my relationships will look?

Ultimately, its about intentional decision…

Let me reiterate. I’m not advocating for a paranoid approach of making every choice an investments vs. a spend. You must rest and recover and enjoy a wasted afternoon every once in a while. I mean, you invest for a reason – so that you can actually enjoy some things.

Rather, I’m asking that we all build more margin by learning to make decisions that skew toward investment vs. spending.

Grow your margin. Realize that your decisions do, generally, head one way or another. At the very least, choose that when you do set time, money, or energy for something, that you think through how that thing can be an investment vs. a spend.

Make sense? Or did I just spend 30 minutes writing vs. investing 30 minutes in producing something that helps myself and hopefully a few others?

Definitely an investment – even if only I benefit.

How can you invest your time, energy, and resources today?

Better yet, how can you flip a ‘spend’ and make it an investment by simply changing your attitude and approach?

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Current Reading Time, Invested in….. The Vision Driven Leader by Michael Hyatt. So far, a great book on identifying the beacon out in front to keep you on track toward your objectives and help filter decisions….

*Investing vs. Spending is hardly an original concept to anybody, but one fellow who beats the drum a lot is a email marketing expert Ben Settle. Just thought I should give credit.

Blogging through the COVID-19 pandemic with ideas that should apply when it’s all over….

My mom and I had a conversation the other day about how she needs to clean out her closet. She said, “I will be really upset when all this quarantining ends. If I had all this time, and I never cleaned out my closet. If I wait until it’s over, I’ll be too busy to get to it then.”

That same idea has been bouncing around in my brain: What will I be disappointed that I didn’t get done when this whole thing is over? What opportunities do I have now that I need to take advantage of?

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it puts pressure for massive change in possibly a short period of time. Any massive change in a short period of time can be a stressor. The pressure causes overwhelm and then we shutdown. Instead of making headway, we give up and watch shows and eat snacks (not that you shouldn’t do at least a little snack-eating and tv-watching during this pandemic).

A better perspective might be this: What I can do tomorrow that might help me be a bit better than today. What can I do tomorrow that will move me a little bit further toward knocking out that project or achieving that goal or conquering that objective.

How can I get just a smidge further down the line?

The follow-up question is what – given the current circumstances – can I double down on and accelerate? While we don’t have to go from zero to hero over night, we can make more progress on some things than if we had more going on all around us.

The (possible) blessing of this pandemic is that in some areas, we might have a little more time to make more headway more quickly on some of our goals.

Our lives are typically so busy that often efforts in self-improvement are set aside for just getting through the day. Not all, but many of us have the opportunity right now to adjust our schedule.

For instance, many of us can use our normal ‘commute’ time to walk a mile or three.

Perhaps we can use this as an opportunity to save on what is usually a 3-4 night out a week for dinner schedule and put that extra $100-$200 a week into savings.

Figure out the things that you’re hoping to change. Do a little bit to effect that change today. Then plan a few minutes tomorrow to be a little bit better than today.

In most areas, you can’t turn it around in one day, but this is a great opportunity to put your foot on the gas a bit more than before.

Most people have a love hate relationship with goals. We know they’re good to have, but they also carry with them a bit of shame when we fail to achieve them.

We commit. We fail. We eat chips and dip. It’s the cycle.

Setting goals is an art and science in and of itself. That’s not what I want to talk about in this post. I want to keep it simple. I don’t want us to sit around and develop a vision and mission and all that and then back into 3-5 goals for blah blah blah.

I want you to eyeball it. I want you to Rorschach test it.

My goals for parenting my kids are….. (and then just spew out the first three things to come to mind).

Or…. I’ll have been a successful parent if…. (and then just spew out the first three things to come to mind).

Those of us who are blessed enough right now during the COVID-19 pandemic (and in the future who are blessed enough to have kids, regardless of when) might be spending a lot more time at home. Yes, you’re working all day so it shouldn’t be much different, but the fact that most families are holed up together 24/7 creates many more ‘parenting opportunities’ for a lack of a better description.

If you’re an introspective human like I am, you start noticing more how you’re handling yourself in each relationship.

As a parent, I’ve had to ask myself… what do I hope I’m able to accomplish with these guys and girl who call me Dad? It’s a huge possibility and opportunity

So I wrote a few things down today…..

• I want them to pursue things they love and things they might come to love, even if it’s challenging and difficult to do so.
• I want them to love Jesus and love others.
• I want them to enjoy life and develop purpose – despite the inevitable struggles that will pop up.

Not really well-defined or well-thought out. Wet cement perhaps – not unchangeable.

But a good enough starting point. A good enough filter for how I should lead them and help set boundaries and allow for freedom.

And it took me all of 5 minutes. Don’t overthink it. Just do it. You’ll find it’s a helpful exercise.

I’m not just a productivity nerd. I’m also one of those nerds that picks a word for the year.

As the title of this post tips you off, my word for 2020 is Stewardship.

I’ve been consumed with the idea of making the most of this COVID-19 ‘shelter-in-place’ situation but I’d forgotten that Stewardship was my word.

I couldn’t have picked a better word!

While most of our routines have been thrown for a loop, we’ve all been given a new set of circumstances to sift through. There are difficulties, yes. But there are also a lot of possibilities.

We have to steward both the difficulties and the possibilities well. Especially the possibilities.

I watched an Instagram Live last night. It was the youth pastor at North Point Community Church, and he was asking the viewers what they’ve realized they took for granted prior to the outbreak of this virus and what they’re going to do about it during the outbreak and after it’s over.

The students who responded were full of wisdom! There were references to friendships and the ability to just spend time with people face to face. One student talked about the opportunity right now to spend time in the Word and in prayer because of all the additional time available.

In the end, it came down to a question of stewardship:

• How have we stewarded our time, resources, and relationships?
• How can we best steward our time right now – to focus on improving ourselves, improving the relationships with those we’re super close to at this very moment?
• How can we better steward all the areas we might have taken for granted before – when this thing is all said and mostly done?

Being a good steward is taking what might not technically belong to us and making the most of it.

• We don’t own time, but we can make it as fruitful as possible.
• We don’t own our friends or family, but we can nurture and care for those relationships.
• You can’t take your cash and other resources with you (ultimately), but you can make the most out of using them as a tool right now – for your and others’ good.

Stewardship. It applies in all areas.

Where do you need to be a better steward? Or even a servant?

You don’t have to adopt my word, but we all would do well to ask and answer those questions.