Thank you for your time.

I currently work in what you would call a "customer service" job - which, sadly, I will be leaving this next Friday. I help people in person, but more often over the phone. At the end of a call last week, the person I had been talking on the phone to said, "Thank you for your time."

Thank you for your time.

I've had people say that to me before, but I hadn't really thought about it until then. I can't even tell you what the call was about, but I do remember that simple phrase, and I have been thinking about it a lot. 

While I was thinking about it as I sat in sacrament meeting today, I remembered a quote that we had discussed while I was a beehive in the Young Women's program.

I've been taught several times that there are few things in our control, and all of them relate to us. How we use our time is one of those things. There are so many things that are screaming for our attention - school, work, family, friends, other relationships, church, food, sleep, exercise, social life, and so many other things! But we get to control what we do with that time. Obviously, there are things that are absolutely necessary for us to get done. What about all of the other time though?

Thank you for your time.

When you are hanging out with someone, doing something together, like shopping or watching a movie, or even just talking, they are choosing to share their time with you, and you with them. One of the only things we have control over, and we often choose to share it with other people. Even at work, something that is an absolute necessity, I chose that job, I chose to be there that day, I chose to answer the phone, I chose to spend time talking to that student and helping them get what they need. I chose to spend my time, the time that my Heavenly Father has given me, helping and talking to someone else.

One of the love languages is quality time. I wholeheartedly believe that using what time we have to be with someone else is an expression of love. Even if we don't love that person, even if we don't get along with them or if it's something that we would rather not be doing, we still choose to give them that time. We will never get time back. There are no refunds, no exchanges. Each minute ticks by, whether we choose to do something worthwhile with it or not.

Thank you for your time.

I also believe that we can be doing so much more with our time, being so much more productive. Living life to the fullest is another way that it can be referred to, I think. I don't mean adding more sand to our already overflowing buckets, but rather using each minute and doing something with it.

One of my best friends also has a blog (which you can look at here). About a week ago, she wrote about how she had a list of things to get done, and by 10:00 that day she hadn't done any of them. So she set a timer at 10:30, and was able to complete that list within an hour. As she shared what she had done during that hour with her husband, he said, "just imagine how productive you would be if you started at 7 a.m." (post: Getting Things Done)

How true that is, especially for me! On Saturdays and Sundays, I like to sleep in until about 10:00, if I don't have anything requiring me to get up earlier. If I woke up earlier, even at 9:00, I would be able to accomplish so much more. On Sundays, I would be better prepared for church. On Saturdays, I would have more study time, or practice time. I would still be able to get the sleep I need (and trust me; my sleep is very important to me!) and get more done.

Back to my job. A video was shared in our weekly staff meeting several months ago that I find extremely relevant to what I've written about today. Please enjoy.

This week is my last week before the semester starts. And while I am looking forward to going back to school (yep, I'm one of those people), I will miss my summer as well. Here's to living life to the fullest this week!