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Taming busyness: practical tips
“If I’m caught up on my laundry, does that mean I’m not doing enough for the church?”
“Am I allowed to fit in time for exercise, or only if it’s between 6 and 7 AM?”
“Can I say ‘no’ to the women’s Bible study if it’s the only night this week that my husband and I are both home?”
Even when our hearts and minds are in the right place, there are still to-do’s and deadlines, crises in our life, and decisions to be made (and, occasionally, goofy questions that cross our mind). Here are some of the tips women shared with me (quoted and paraphrased) to help tame the inevitable busyness of life.
Be deliberate about the complications you add
Be deliberate about the complications you add to your life…
Our gadgets, our wardrobe, our extracurriculars, how we celebrate holidays – can we simplify? How busy are we with details that don’t really matter, or that add more stress than joy?
Every commitment or complication you add to your life (joining a sports team, getting a pet, opening an Etsy shop, growing a garden) adds busyness – often more than we anticipate. Embrace these kinds of good opportunities, by all means, but choose the ones that will truly enrich your life and that fit in with your other priorities.
Know your limits
Don’t cheat your body – it really does need sleep, healthy food, and exercise (and maybe not quite that much caffeine). Recognize not just your limits of physical busyness, but also of being mentally/emotionally “used up.”
- “I used to ‘push through,’ but there’s always a payback time eventually.”
- “Develop healthy habits and trust God to care for you.”
- “When I cross the line to too busy, I start to take myself too seriously, I lose joy in my task, and the people that I presumably love the most in the world become burdensome to me. That is always my sign that I have to slow down.”
- “If I can’t help with something I can always pray for that person, activity, situation. I’m saying no but I trust that God is already there providing.”
Know what’s important
You will miss out on some good and worthwhile things – and so will your kids. If you know you’re saying “no” to something because you’re committed to what you’re saying “yes” to, it’s easier to let opportunities pass you by.
- “I decided that, at this stage of life, healthy meals are more important than a perfectly clean house. Maybe one day I’ll have time for both... or, maybe not.”
- “Sometimes ‘done’ is better than ‘perfect.’”
- “Accept a bit more chaos.”
- “There are times when I suddenly realize that all the kids are overdue for haircuts again, and the boys’ pants are showing a bit too much sock. But they’re all loved and fed so I try not to stress too much.”
Know what “fills you up”
Some things deplete us (and we can’t entirely avoid these things), while other things recharge us. Recognize the things that energize you, and find opportunities to do them: coaching a school team, baking cinnamon buns for a stressed-out friend, bringing flowers to shut-ins, writing an article?
Start your day right
What do you reach for first in the morning: your phone or your Bible?
Treasure Sundays and breaks that refresh
Sunday can bring its own busyness. If you’re not refreshed and refocused by your Sunday habits, does something need to change?
Breaks are good, but sometimes they’re not truly rejuvenating. The last time you let yourself mindlessly scroll on your phone for a mental break, how did you actually feel afterwards? What if you took a short walk or picked up your devotional instead?
Identify your biggest time-waster(s)
Where or how do you get most distracted and waste the most time, without any significant benefit to yourself or others? Reclaim some of this “lost time”: set time limits for yourself, ask for accountability from a loved one, or remove the source of a temptation.
Do the small thing when you can’t do the big one
No time for that visit? You can send an encouraging note. Never seem to make it to the gym? Find a ten-minute online workout. Something is (almost) always better than nothing.
- “Do a little and trust that God will use it.”
Spread the load
If you’re a mom – kids and chores: how well acquainted are yours? Your investment of time in teaching your kids helpful skills will pay off for everyone, not least for your kids themselves.
Do you have a friend or sibling with different strengths than you? Could you swap some tasks in a way that benefits you both?
Get extra mileage out of your time
- “I listen to the Bible on audio while driving, or cooking.”
- “We use our dinner times to intentionally check in with our kids, try to have meaningful conversations and stay connected.”
- “Turn all those driving time (sports, appointments, etc.) into one-on-one ‘dates’ with your kids. Often great conversations happen when it’s just the two of you in the car.”
- “If you’re running an errand, always take one child along.”
Kids and chores: are yours acquainted?
Recognize there are different seasons in life
Although balance is a good overall goal, there are seasons that will feel out of balance. There are also times when certain things we’d love to do just aren’t possible because of the pressing needs of the moment.
One mom shared with me that she used to get frustrated because it was hard to find quiet time for devotions with her young kids around. So she started doing devotions with them instead – reading and praying out loud, and letting her kids “take notes” in their own little notebooks while she journaled. It’s been a good solution for this stage of her life.
- “Looking back, the time when my kids were small and were all at home was so short. Why was I so impatient to try to fit in all kinds of other things?”
Count your blessings
- “Sometimes when I feel complain-y about all the things I have to do, I think about my immigrant grandmothers. I have choices and conveniences they never would’ve dreamed of. It’s a good reality check.”
News
Saturday Selections – Dec. 12, 2025
Chickens are cooler than you knew (6 min)
We all know chickens have the astonishing ability to turn grain into a key ingredient for Egg McMuffins, but few know that chickens are also the animal equivalent of gimbal cameras – no matter how you move them, back and forth, round and round, up and down, their head remains fixed in one spot. It's crazy. It's also the fingerprints of the their great Designer... though this secular video doesn't go there.
One note: the last 90 seconds of this is just a commercial for a 3D printer, so once that starts you can hit stop.
Tim Challies' Top 10 books of 2025
Can Australia's ban on social media for kids be a bad thing?
Australia is now banning kids under 16 from using social media. Hurrah, right? Well, as Rev. Witteveen outlines, there is a dark cloud to this silver lining – in keeping kids off, the government is implementing measures to further monitor everyone else. But they'll use is responsibly, right? Social media is a big problem, but protecting our kids was always a parental responsibility, and if we hand it off to the government, we might not like what else they do with the power we're handing over to them. Remember the Australian government's response to COVID?
7 lies about our love life
The world has quite a pack of lies to sell. And God has something very different to say.
Surgery denied. Death approved.
A Saskatchewan woman, Jolene Van Alstine, who is suffering from a painful but treatable disease, has been approved for death-by-doctor (euphemistically called "MAiD"). As the linked article explains:
"We have a growing list of citizens choosing death because medicine has become a lottery →
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- a quadriplegic woman who applied for MAiD because she couldn’t secure basic home-care support
- veterans offered MAiD instead of trauma treatment
- homeless Canadians considering MAiD because they can’t survive winter
"And now a woman denied a simple, lifesaving surgery."
American conservative commentator Glenn Beck has come to the rescue though, offering to pay for Van Alstine to get treatment in the US.
The author's article doesn't rule out MAiD altogether, but pitches it as a last ditch option. But in doing so, she too has lost the plot. If death is medicine at any time, then on what basis would it not be a valid offering all the time? Why refuse any good option? And why can't it be a cost-cutting measure even? If it is valid to kill some to ease suffering, why couldn't it be valid to kill more, so as to more quickly and more cheaply, ease more suffering? When murder is medicine the only fixed line has been crossed – we've long treated abortion as healthcare, and killing the born in the name of medicine is just the next step. Offering Alstine death as treatment is entirely in keeping with this worldview.
But there is another understanding of life. Not as something we hold and can choose to dispose of as we will, but as something entrusted to us, to steward. Christians seem unwilling to raise God in the euthanasia battle, but if we leave God out of this conversation, what basis is there for human worth? The State gives you worth? Well, then the State can take away that valuation, as it has done for Van Alstine. We decide our own worth? Again, not so for Van Alstine – outside forces, the province's neglect, have her devaluing a life she might otherwise treasure. Euthanasia, built on the lie of autonomy, is here exposed. We need highlight her plight to showcase the antithesis. All murders are always wrong because we are made in the very image of God. Our response has to be to proclaim God's sovereignty over life. For His glory, and because only His Truth can answer these lies.
1 more reason we're Protestants
Jeff Durbin highlights another area where the Roman Catholic Church is running right up against God.
Today's Devotional
December 13 - A Saviour
“And the angel said to them, “Fear not; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”” - Luke 2:10-11
Scripture reading:Isaiah 45:20-25
The angel proclaims the birth of “a Savior.” If you ask people, “What >
Today's Manna Podcast
Seek the Lord
Serving #1055 of Manna, prepared by J. deGelder, is called "Seek the Lord " and is based on Psalm 27:7-10.
