Reagan's Roundup

Reagan’s Roundup: April 17, 2025

April 17, 2025by Reagan Rose5 min read

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Your weekly roundup of insights and resources to help you get more done for the glory of God.

In Today’s Issue:

The Best Place to Start with Time Management
How to Publicly Thank God After a Work Win
John Piper’s on a Biblically Informed Retirement Plan
The Rule of 3
Hudson Taylor or Fruit-bearing & Cross-bearing

Dear steward,

Last weekend I was speaking at a church on the subject of life stewardship. And during the Q&A portion at the end of the talk, someone asked an excellent question:

“If I’m trying to get better at managing my time, what’s is THE FIRST THING I should do?”

When you first start learning about personal productivity, it can be kind of intimidating. Everywhere you look someone is offering a different tip, strategy, or app that’s going to “change your life.” So where do you start?

If your life is feeling out of control, you know you aren’t stewarding your time well, and you just want to know where to start, then let me offer this one piece of advice:

Start with your bed time.

Reasons:

More Predictable Mornings. It’s easier to have consistent morning habits (devotions, exercise, planning the day, etc.) if you are going to sleep a decent time on a regular schedule.
Improved Sleep Quality. Quality sleep is as much about consistency as it is about quantity (number of hours). God designed our bodies to follow regular rhythms. Going to bed at the same time trains your body’s internal clock (circadian rhythm), making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Better Mental Clarity. Your brain thrives on routine. A consistent bedtime helps your mind stay sharp, improves focus, and enhances decision-making during the day.

Having a bedtime as an adult sounds kind of lame, but I just see it as part of the stewardship of my body. And I’ve found that if I nail this habit, everything else gets easier.

The easiest way to build this habit is to set an alarm on your phone that goes off 30-45 minutes before you want to be in bed. That’s your cue to start winding down, get off the screens, and start preparing for sleep. But after a couple weeks of consistency, you’ll just start feeling tired at that time and you won’t need the alarm anymore.

If you’re interested, I’ve got a few more tips on evening routines in How to Prepare for a Great Morning Routine.

We also dedicate an entire week to morning routine habits in the new Waypoints to Well Done curriculum, which is part of the RPA membership. If you’re a Christian who is wanting to take a giant leap forward with your time management, consider joining the Redeeming Productivity Academy.

Weekly Word

“O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.”
– Psalm 5:3

In this Psalm David models a heart that begins each day by turning to the Lord in expectant prayer. When we start our mornings with God—lifting our requests and watching for His work—we cultivate a posture of trust that steadies us for whatever the day may bring.

Worth Your Time

How to Publicly Thank God After a Work Win (4 mins) Miranda Carls offers some excellent Scriptural counsel for how to honor Christ in the workplace when you experience success.
John Piper’s Framework for a Biblically Informed Retirement Plan (11 mins) This is a great read. Chris Cagle looks at some of Piper’s principles on retirement and compliments it with his own expertise. Chris was previously a guest on our podcast and I can’t recommend highly enough his series on NextGenStewardship.
The Rule of 3 (2 mins) A simple framework for keeping your the priorities for your day, week, and year crystal clear.

Words of Wisdom

“Fruit-bearing involves cross-bearing. There are not two Christs—an easygoing one for easygoing Christians, and a suffering, toiling one for exceptional believers. There is only one Christ. Are you willing to abide in Him, and thus to bear much fruit?”
– Hudson Taylor