T.I.M.E

Do you pay close and careful attention to the smallest details in your life? Or do you just run a million miles an hour all the time and never step off the treadmill?

I know when I don’t step off the treadmill of life, I find myself less thankful and I also find myself more unaware of all the things that God is doing in my life. Every morning when I wake up it’s like putting on my running shoes to get on the treadmill. I have lots of things I want to get done and very little time to lallygag around. 

I believe it’s incredibly important to develop a routine where you are proactive and make sure you are really taking a step back and paying close attention to what is going on around you. 

Time has energy and places have memories. 

The best way that I have discovered to help me pay closer attention to what is really going on in my life is having a fulfilling morning routine. 

I have recently become a huge fan in Jay Shetty who just wrote the book Think Like a Monk. In the book he talks about a morning routine that consists of four necessary things we should do in order to prepare us for our day. 

He refers to this morning routine as T.I.M.E. 

Now a morning routine is a lot like putting on armor for battle. When you do your morning routine, when unexpected things happen to you during the day you are better equipped to handle them. If you don’t do your morning routine, it’s like not putting on the armor for battle. 

So everyday we need to make sure we put on our armor. 

(T) thankfulness 

Every morning we should really take time to thank God for all of the things that we are thankful for. When we do this, we cannot make it generic. We can’t just thank God for the sky being blue. We have to really describe in depth what we are thankful for and the reasons we are thankful for those things. For example, I am incredibly thankful for the people that I work with because they encourage me, make me feel special, and push me to become the best version of myself on a daily basis. 

(I) insight 

We need to take some time out of our morning to really dive into something that will provide us with some insight. Whether it’s listening to a podcast, reading a devotional, or bettering your knowledge about something that you really care about. Making sure that you are providing yourself with some insight is key to how you start to think and perceive the day ahead. Again, for me what I do is listen to a podcast and lately I have really been into the Ed Mylett podcast. 

(M) mediation

Prayer/mediating is huge. We need to make sure we take some time out of our morning routine where we are really stepping back and being completely at peace. I do this when I take my morning walks. To me, there is no better way to feel complete at peace and relaxed then when I am taking a nice 15 minute walk in the morning.

(E) exercise

I can’t stress the importance of this enough. We need to exercise on a daily basis. Whether it’s for 5 minutes or 15 minutes. There is no better way to implement healthy habits than by exercising. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy either. You could take a walk, do some yoga, or pull up your favorite workout from home YouTube video. For me, I watch the anabolic aliens workout channel. I can find a 5 minute workout that really gets me feeling energized in the brief time I spend doing it. The past couple months, with working from home has been such a blessing. I am able to carve out about 50-70 minutes to workout on a daily basis and that’s helped me so much with just how I feel both physically and mentally.

Why have a routine like this? Having a routine like this allows you to take a step back and to pay close attention to all that God is doing in your life. This is important because God is always doing something in your life and is always at work. The more that we take a step back and pay attention to those things, the more aware we are of the power of God. 

“We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” (Hebrews 2:1) 

We have to pay attention our we will just continue to drift away on this busy and crazy thing we call life.