Reagan's Roundup

Reagan’s Roundup: May 22nd, 2025

May 22, 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:

Priority Management > Time Management
Ephesians 6:5–8 on Work
Biblical Truths for Graduates
Ambition Is Good
The Ruthless Elimination of Sloth

Dear steward,

We all want to be better at time management. But often we fail to improve in this area because we focus on calendars and clocks when we need to fix our eyes further upstream.

Time management begins with values management.

Without clear priorities:

You say yes to too many things
Time is wasted on unimportant tasks
Urgency pushes the important aside

The main reason we don’t manage our time well is that we are not hyper-clear about what our priorities are. Without clear priorities you are like a ship without compass or rudder, blown about by every task that comes your way.

But when you know with conviction the order of importance of projects or tasks, you can line them up in order and make time for what matters most.

Here’s a simple exercise if you’re struggling to manage your time: Write down your priorities, and number them in order of importance.

Then look at how you’re currently spending your time.

Ask, “Where is the disconnect between my priorities and my time management?”

And here’s a little hint: Your first priority should be seeking His kingdom and righteousness. If that’s not at the top of the list, then it’s no wonder everything else is chaotic!

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Revisit the Best Ideas

If you’re a reader, like me, you know the goal of reading isn’t just to finish books. We want to get something out of them—to be changed in some way.

But too often we finish a book, put it on the shelf, and forget all about it. The concepts that were so profound as we read them, slink away into a back corner of our minds. And we end up never applying what we read.

Several years ago, I started using Shortform book summaries to help me preview books before I bought them (which I still do). But I found that another great way to use the service is by reading summaries of books I’ve already read.

Just this week, I was reading the Shortform summary of Gary Keller’s The ONE Thing. I’ve read that book cover-to-cover three times. But in just a few minutes reading the summary, I was reminded of several of the key concepts and was able to apply them to a problem I was facing today.

If you’ve never used Shortform before, I’d encourage you to give it a spin. It’s not just summaries; it’s the world’s best guides to over 1,000 nonfiction books. Learn key points and gain insights you won’t find anywhere else.

You can get a 20% discount using my link: shortform.com/reagan

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Weekly Word

“Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.”
– Ephesians 6:5-8

My pastor preached on this last Sunday, so I’ll just share the his summary how we are to respond to this passage: Christian workers are to be sober, sincere, and submission to Christ. Let those heart attitudes characterize your work as you finish out this week.

Worth Your Time

Biblical Truths I Wish Someone Had Shared with Me After Graduation (4 mins) “Some of us never really got any good advice nor had good mentors early in our careers. We were left to fend for ourselves and as a result, made many mistakes. After a lifetime of work, here are five biblical truths that I wish someone had told me when I graduated.”
Ambition in the Christian Life (52 mins) This is a interesting interview with Dave Harvey, author of Rescuing Ambition, about how Christians should think about ambition—the bad and the good. “[The church] creates Christians that are so modest they aspire to nothing.”
The Ruthless Elimination of Sloth (7 mins) “In Scripture, hard work is a good thing and sloth refers to the avoidance or resentment of labor. Young men who want to be godly must learn to identify and resist the trap of laziness”

Words of Wisdom

“Waiting takes our definition of productivity to school. It tutors us to connect our agenda not to personal achievement but to God’s glory. Then we can bear God’s fruit, satisfied that his list is accomplished during our day, even when ours is not.”
― Dave Harvey, Rescuing Ambition

P.S. Check out our new Waypoints Goal Planner. It’s designed to help you set and achieve God-honoring goals while managing the rest of your life. Both digital and paper version available.