None of us has a resource more valuable than our time because the only way that we can become happy is to devote more time to spiritual pursuits. More often than not, however, we tend to place more of a premium on our management of material resources than we do on the management of our time. For example, we are more likely to put effort into budgeting our finances and the tracking of montly expenditures than we are to put the same effort into prioritizing our time. Such an approach is not efficient because time is more valuable than money.
As we set about adopting an approach to managing our time, there are two important considerations that we need to take into account. First of all, we need to ensure that we have identified the right priorities. To what extent do we allow priorities set by other people to influence how we allocate our time? Are the priorities we have set, as reflected by our current time allocation, likely to lead us towards happiness and satisfaction or are they more likely to result in continued confusion and suffering? If our goal is happiness then present moment awareness should be our top priority.
Secondly we need to act on our priorities in a concrete way. One approach to doing this which works quite well is to pay attention to the order in which we choose to do things. A very common mistake is to pay too much attention to lower priority tasks early in the day and leave the higher priority tasks until later. The result is that the higher priorities don’t get enough attention because they are relegated to the time we have left over. A better approach is to start with the high priority tasks. That means that training in mindfulness should be at the top of our list every day. We should also prioritize a time once a year for a meditation retreat so that we can not only maintain a grounding but also begin to grow spiritually.
As a bonus, the rewards of present moment awareness are not limited to spiritual progress. Once we decide to make present moment awareness our top priority, all of the other aspects of our life will fall into place because we will have established a solid foundation.