Glynnis Whitwer > Quotes

“People who don't know their purpose try to do too much—and that causes stress, fatigue and conflict. It's impossible to do everything people want you to do. You have just enough time to do God's will. If you can't get it all done, it means you're trying to do more than God intended for you to do.”
― Glynnis Whitwer

“If your schedule is unmanageable and overwhelming, it's likely your priorities are in the wrong place.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, I Used to Be So Organized: Help for Reclaiming Order and Peace

“You can either choose the pain of discipline now, or the pain of regret later. Regret lasts longer.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, I Used to Be So Organized: Help for Reclaiming Order and Peace

“Our culture has created a sense of urgency and expectation that's hard to shake.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, I Used to Be So Organized: Help for Reclaiming Order and Peace

“God revealed that my view of my life and purpose was small compared to his. I had separated all the areas of my life and was destroying myself trying to keep everything balanced.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, I Used to Be So Organized: Help for Reclaiming Order and Peace

“The truth is always the best approach when saying no. Keep it simple. People don't need to hear your sob story. A five-minute exposition about your busy life, your demanding mother, or your clinging children isn't the most effective approach. That may be the truth, but you've given too much information, and your listener tuned out four minutes ago.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, I Used to Be So Organized: Help for Reclaiming Order and Peace

“without a deep understanding that our significance comes from being loved and accepted by God exactly as we are, upside-down priorities will dominate our lives.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, I Used to Be So Organized: Help for Reclaiming Order and Peace

“God challenged me to match my outsides with my insides. I had to reevaluate my priorities and my expectations for myself. It was a time of brutal honesty, loneliness, and shattered pride. But it was drenched in a message of hope and redemption.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, I Used to Be So Organized: Help for Reclaiming Order and Peace

“The Bible has a promise for us when we discipline ourselves: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11).”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“The same applies to my marriage and children. I am the only woman who is my husband’s wife.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“The more decisions we have to make, the less stamina we have to make the best one for us at that moment.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Procrastination is a dangerous habit to develop, and it carries a high cost not only to our schedules but also to our hearts, spiritual lives, relationships, and finances. There’s a snowball effect of delayed tasks. And as they accumulate, we are further from the life we want and from the person we want to be. We even procrastinate when God gives us an assignment, and then we walk in disobedience. Which creates entirely new issues.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Josh Riebock, in his book Heroes and Monsters, says, “Everyone can change tomorrow. Everyone solves problems tomorrow. But the only changes that matter are the ones I make today. Tomorrow is the easiest day I’ll ever live. Today is the scary one, which is probably why I’ve spent so much time avoiding it.”[5]”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. (Titus 2:3–5) I also love this verse: “We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies” (2 Thess. 3:11).”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Sometimes our lives change drastically but we refuse to accept the change. We soldier on as if nothing has changed and get further and further behind. We believe we should be able to manage it all because we used to before the change happened.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“We’ll never find peace when the demands on our time and energy exceed our capacity.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“The only true failure is to never try.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Every effort we make, every small step we take, if it is done with a right heart, pleases God.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“I’m learning that I don’t have to prove myself. And despite my superwoman complex, which got me into all kinds of situations, I’m not able to do all things.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“God has promised forgiveness to your repentance; but he has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination. St. Augustine”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“No one else can nurture my personal faith in God. Only I can do that. No one else can get my body to the gym or limit my sugar intake. I have the final decision on those responsibilities.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“When God changes our circumstances, we should consider changing our priorities.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Not every task, volunteer position, responsibility at work, or job around the house is my responsibility.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Procrastination isn’t a sign there’s something wrong with us but that there’s opportunity for growth in our lives.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Multitasking, another opponent of focus, is something we do all the time—and it’s actually rewiring our brains in a way that makes it difficult for us to sustain focus when needed. In fact, we can lose up to 40 percent of our productivity when we multitask.[7]”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“During that time, “Hurry up or we’ll be late” was commonly heard, either yelled from the kitchen or hissed while we scurried into the back row at church. There was too much to do in too little time. Life was a blur. And I thought everyone lived like this. That was until I read about “hurry sickness” in The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg. My heart was skewered when I read that one of its symptoms is a diminished capacity to love. My children could have told you I had a problem. Only it wasn’t hurry sickness, it was hurry addiction. God dealt with my addiction to overload and hurry by taking it all away in a cross-country move. He made me go cold turkey as I said good-bye to working at my job, directing the children’s ministry, coleading the women’s ministry, being on the praise team, having my small group, leading Vacation Bible Study each summer, and more. God moved us 2,100 miles away—so far that I couldn’t even sneak back to lead a women’s event. I had no job, no church, and no friends, just lots of time. Since two of the boys were in school and the youngest had just started preschool, I had plenty of time to think and pray. And while there were lots of tears, I also experienced God in a new way. Very quickly, God connected me with Proverbs 31 Ministries. I started to learn that God had a better plan for my life than I did, and that I should look to Him for direction on my daily activities. I also learned that my first line of ministry was inside my home. I wasn’t completely cured of my hurry addiction yet, so I decided I would become the Best Homemaker Ever. And then I picked up a book called No Ordinary Home by Carol Brazo. And right in the beginning of the book I read something that brought about the biggest change in my life: If there were one biblical truth I wish I could give my children and lay hold of in my own deepest parts, it would be this one thing. He created me, He loves me, He will always love me. Nothing I do will change who I am. Being versus doing. The error was finally outlined in bold. I was always worried about what I was doing. . . . God’s only concern was and is what I am being—a child of His, forgiven, justified by the work of His Son, His Heir.[2] You know when you feel like an author has peeked into your living room window and knows exactly who you are? That’s what reading this was like for me. God wired me to be highly productive, but I hadn’t undergirded that with an understanding of my true identity. So in order to feel worthwhile and valued and confident, I was driven to take on more. More accomplishments equaled more worth. But it was never enough.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Starting a task or project can be a challenge for a procrastinator. But the only way we strengthen our starting muscles is to start. Then do it again and again.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“when my choices are fueled by self-focused need, my best work is seldom done.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“Overload is a condition of our hearts. It’s the result of following our own to-do list rather than God’s.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List

“If decision making taxes our self-regulation, then an easy response is to minimize decisions before tackling something we’ve been procrastinating.”
― Glynnis Whitwer, Taming the To-Do List