Ponderize - Mosiah 4:30

Mosiah 4:30
But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of Christ, even until the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.

My memorization was not perfect. I said "Christ" instead of "our Lord," and "until" instead of "unto," and I probably added or left out a comma or two here or there, but for the most part, I think I did alright.

There is something that I think I would add to this verse, at least in how it applies to me, though what I would add is probably implied by "watch yourselves, and your thoughts, . . . and your deeds." The phrase I would add to this verse for my personal application is "and your time," or perhaps "and how you spend your time." I don't know where I'd put it, but I think the admonition to keep better track of my time would be helpful to me. I'm sure I'm not the only one with the bad habit of surfing the internet and losing track of time. Wasting time seems to be a problem that this generation especially is going to have to deal with.

So, what strategies can we use to "watch our time"? One method is to literally keep track of how we spend our time. I've tried that for a while. Each hour, I would write down how I spent that hour. None of the apps I currently have on my phone seem to be good for that. I could try my note-taking app, but the input system is less convenient than just writing things down, though typing on my phone is probably less inconvenient than carrying a pencil and a pad of paper everywhere.

Another, more proactive way is to schedule out your day, down to the hour. Missionaries do that. Each person who does this will have to decide how strictly they'll keep to their schedule, and will have to try to plan ahead, knowing that their schedules may have to change, depending on unforeseen circumstances. A person never plans to spend half an hour changing a flat tire, but it still happens. Sometimes a new task takes priority over a planned task, so the schedule will have to be at least somewhat flexible. Also, since planning takes time, a person would have to evaluate whether their planning saves more time than it takes.

I don't know if I'll make myself a daily schedule; at least, not until the semester ends. My school and work schedules give me enough structure that I don't feel like a need much more. All I really need is to make sure I'm using my non-school, non-work time efficiently, and keeping track of how I spend each non-school, non-work hour will probably be sufficient for that.

There are almost certainly other ways to "watch your time," but keeping track of each hour, like I did for my Experiment Six-to-Six, will probably be a good start. Of course, I'll want to adjust the hours, probably to Seven-to-Eleven, to account for the hours I spend in the evening either doing homework, blogging, or wasting time, and to account for the fact that I almost never get up promptly at six anymore.

I'll start keeping track of time on my phone, probably with my note-taking app, and we'll see how that goes. Hopefully, it'll help me get more done and do things earlier. I know that it's important for me to "watch my time," and now I have once again been reminded to do that. We'll see how long it lasts this time. I'm not sure it'll become a habit. I don't think ponderizing has. But even if I don't keep Experiment Seven-to-Eleven up forever, it should be beneficial to me for as long as it lasts, and as Finals Week approaches, I could definitely use that.