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Just 15 min-a-day by Charlotte Hale Allen What's the biggest dream of your life? How important is it? How much would you give up to make it happen? Let me pass along to you one of the most powerfully creative facts that anyone ever taught me, and it's astoundingly true. You can do just about anything you want to do, if you spend just 15 minutes a day at it. Consider this: In three years you can become an expert on any subject you care to study-Chinese art, computer programming, cooking, chess, bridge, bricklaying, anything if you work at is 15 minutes a day. In just one year or less you can accomplish some tremendous tasks by investing just 15 minutes a day. For example, you could: 1. Read the entire Bible. Remembering the day I discovered the magic of 15 minutes still makes me smile. My husband and I had driven to a small town in the country that hot summer Saturday, to call on a friend who was the town's only doctor, an ardent do-it-yourselfer. He'd recently bought a sprawling Victorian house and we discovered him sitting n the middle of a room surrounded by paint cans and a clutter of tools, gazing toward the ceiling and muttering, "That thing's gotta come down!" We thought he's flipped- especially when we learned that George intended to repair, repaints or refurnish every room in that three-story monstrosity by himself. How long would it take? Where would he find the time? How unrealistic could her get? A quick tour of the already-completed rooms, however, aroused our interest and excitement. I admires a charming "new" bathroom in which George had lowered the ceiling, installed and painted new storage cabinets, hung wallpaper, changes light fixtures, and even provided heated towel racks. "I work fifteen minutes at a time, but never stop before my time is up," George explained. "That's the secret: Work fifteen minutes a day, without fail." Still, I was skeptical, I couldn't believe such a simple plan could possibly help me. I decided to give it a try. That was more than 20 years ago, and since then I've had great fun with those magic chunks of time. My first project was to tackle a badly neglected flower garden which was chocked with weeds. Every time I looked out the dining room window, I fretted, because I thought I had no time whatever to try to redeem that impossible garden. That's when I learned how many weeds I could pull in 15 minutes! It took just one week, snatching a quarter hour here, another there, to get that flower border tidy and ready for new transplants. The beauty of 15 minutes a day is that it helps me to stop postponing those things I really want or need to do and get them underway. IT banishes discouragement and halts procrastination. The method works on any job or goal that matters to me, whether it's writing a book or cleaning all the kitchen cupboards. Many grim little jobs really don't deserve more than 15 minutes a day, anyhow. Done all at once, they'd be too much of a bad thing. You know the jobs I mean: Filing papers, cleaning closets, polishing silver, tidying a garage or tool shed. Doing part of the sort of talk, however, makes an enjoyable break from other duties. After a long committee meeting, it is soothing to polish the coffee service for 15 minutes. Tidying a drawer or cupboard seems easy and satisfying to me after three hours at the typewriter. Large goals- some pleasant, others less so- can be accomplished 15 minutes at at time. I know a man, who prepares his income-tax returns that way. Since he hates the job, he begins on January 1st and works a few minutes each day until all is ship shape. "I used to do it all in one terrible rush just before the April deadline," he moaned." "I'd upset the whole house for a week! Now, even stringing it out this way it never takes as long as I think it will. I'm done before the end of January." What can you do in 15 minutes time? Answers to that question range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Men offer a wealth of practical ideas: post books, sharpen garden tools, shine shoes, listen to Scripture tapes, tackle small household repairs. Women suggest these: help a child tidy up a room, make a beautiful dessert, take a short walk, straighten a wardrobe closet, plan menus, read books, take a bubble bath, visit a neighbor, phone an older person, listen to God, write a note, do something special for a family member. Such ideas move life forward. They strengthen purpose. They establish habits of industry. The Bible has much today about that of course. The Book of Proverbs, in particular, encourages us to check our work habits. I like this verse from Proverbs 12:24, 'The hand of the diligent shall bear rule." Take 15 minutes right now and ask yourself these questions: What is my biggest dream? Try it for a week. You'll be surprised at what God and you can do in just those few minutes.
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