As I looked at my planner the other day, I heaved one long sigh after another. Once again, I’d penned in lists of things I wanted to accomplish throughout the week. And once again, I’d never gotten to half of them by Friday evening. My time management skills waned with my energy levels.

Being a mom requires a lot of time to begin with. Add in being an entrepreneur, and there’s simply never enough time.

As I sighed over my planner today, I realized a few things about time management. Now, I’ve known these things all along – somewhere in the back of my overcrowded mind – but this morning the light bulb came on inside some closeted section of my brain. I had a fresh perspective on time management.

Here are 5 fresh time management tips:

1. Recognize how much time you have in a day.

This never changes (duh). We have 24 hours each day with which to take time for ourselves before the crew wakes up, get everyone where they need to be each day, work on our latest project(s), cook dinner, wash dishes, listen to our children download their day, run laundry, and tuck the kids into bed before we collapse. No more. No less.

2. Recognize your priorities.

What is most important to you? Family? Church? Work? Play? Sure, we have multiple things that are important to us. The key to prioritizing is to determine what you can and can’t live without. Personally, my husband and children are of utmost priority, falling just under my relationship with Jesus. Then comes whatever else God is asking me to be obedient in doing throughout a season or in a day. Setting priorities helps you decide what needs to be done in a day and what can wait until tomorrow or be completely thrown out of your already busy schedule.

3. Recognize how much time it takes you to complete a task.

This is one of the biggest things I struggle with. I know how long it takes me to clean around the house in the morning after the kids have left for school, which cuts into my writing time, so my writing goes to the wayside. I also know how long it takes me to edit a manuscript, because my family life always takes over in the midst of an edit. It never fails that someone will get sick or hurt themselves, which will take days of appointments out of my editing schedule. I also know that I have a hard time sitting down to work or getting back to work if my day is interrupted. Which leads to…

4. Recognize your need to guard your time.

Time is one thing we can never get back. Once it passes, it’s gone. We can make more money. But we can’t make more time. We have to spend it wisely.

5. Recognize your assignments. And learn to say “no” to the rest.

I was at a women’s gathering at church not too long ago, and one of the speakers pointed out the difference between God’s call on our lives, His will for us, and our assignments. His call is to enter into His kingdom and be born again. It’s to experience salvation. His will is for me to be a sacrifice for Him. To lay down my life in obedience.

And the rest of life is made up of a variety of assignments He wants me to participate in. The key is to know which assignments are for me and which are for someone else. I have to be able to say no to things that come my way but aren’t assigned to me. Yes, good things, positive opportunities will come my way. But not every good thing is God’s best thing for me. And those I should pass on. It’s better to be obedient and find joy in the things I am doing than to take on too many things and live a frustrated life.

Some of these are your typical time management tips. I hope the spin I put on them is fresh revelation for you.

What’s one way you could apply one of my time management tips to your schedule today? What tip do you have? Let’s converse! Share your comment below.