What If Busy Is Your Biggest Temptation - Coose Between What’s Good, What’s Better, and What’s Best!

Something feels off even when you’re doing all the right things. You’re working, serving, learning, staying active, showing up for family, and trying to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ, yet there’s still that quiet sense that something is missing. We go straight at the uncomfortable possibility: some good things might be blocking the best things God wants for your life.

We build the conversation around President Dallin H. Oaks’ “Good, Better, Best,” then get painfully practical about time management and spiritual priorities. Time is not renewable, so every yes automatically becomes a no somewhere else. That changes the question from “Is this good?” to “What am I becoming because of what I’m doing?” We walk through the Martha and Mary story, and we look at how Jesus consistently chooses people over pace, showing us the difference between being inefficient and being intentional.

To make it actionable, we share a clear framework you can use today: four questions to run your habits and commitments through, plus a five-year lens that exposes where tiny choices are shaping identity. We talk about opportunity cost, the danger of “winning at the wrong game,” and a simple hierarchy from Matthew 22 that keeps God first, people next, and everything else in its proper place. You’ll leave with a concrete exercise: write your own good, better, best list and replace one distracting habit with something that produces eternal value.

If this helps, subscribe for more Spirit by Design, share it with a friend who feels overloaded, and leave a five-star review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Why Good Still Feels Missing

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Have you ever looked at your life and thought, I'm doing a lot of good things. Why do I feel like something is missing? You're working, you're exercising, you're serving, you're taking care of your family, you're going to church, you're doing the things you know you should, you're trying to improve yourself, you're learning, you're studying, you're listening to podcasts like this one. You're trying to become a better disciple of Jesus Christ. And yet you feel like something's missing. Here's the uncomfortable question. What if some of the good things you're doing are keeping you from the best things God wants you to do? So back in 2007, President Dallan H. Oaks, he was elder Dallan H. Oakes then, challenged us to wrestle with this idea in his talk, Good, Better, Best. I think this principle is even more important today than it was when he gave the talk in 2007. Because our problem isn't necessarily that we're doing bad things, especially if you're listening to this and you've been listening for a while and you're trying to improve yourself. The problem sometimes is that we're drowning in good things. And good things can become the enemy of the best things.

Good Better Best And Time

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Welcome to Todd Tuck's Spirit by Design, where I help you design your spirit life so that you're prepared for Christ's second coming. So delving into this, the problem isn't always sin. One of the most important principles Elder Oakes taught us was that simply asking, is this good, isn't enough. Because there are far more good things we could do than there is time available to do them in. That means every yes we give to something is ultimately a no to something else. Think about that. If I spend an hour doing one thing, I've just spent an hour that I cannot get back, that I can't spend it doing something else. Time is not renewable. I wrote a uh short haiku when I was in high school. It was what four or five words? Time taken, never given back. That was it. Time taken, never given back. Time is not reversible. You can make more money, you can replace possessions, you can rebuild businesses, but you can't get yesterday back. You cannot get your time back. The apostle Paul taught in Ephesians redeeming the time because the days are evil. The question isn't simply, what am I doing? The better question is, what am I becoming because of what I'm doing? That's a completely different question. One

Martha And Mary Priorities

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of the examples, powerful examples, Elder Oaks used comes from the New Testament. Jesus visits Martha and Mary. Martha is serving, she's working, she's preparing, she's taking care of things, she's getting stuff done. Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to him. Martha becomes frustrated. She asks the Savior why Mary isn't helping her. And Jesus responds, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful. Jesus didn't tell Martha that serving was bad, that what she was doing was bad. He just told her that something else was more needful, meaning that what Mary was doing was more important, better for the soul, than what Martha was doing. Good, better, best. Both things were good. What Mary was doing was better. Sometimes the decision isn't between good and evil. Sometimes it's between good and better, or better and best, and those decisions can be much harder.

Busy Trap Versus Christlike Intentionality

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Elder Ukdorf, in a later talk, he warned us about becoming so busy that we lose sight of what matters most. That's a trap I think many of us fall into. I don't have time, I've got so much going on, my schedule is crazy, and somehow we interpret that as evidence that we're important. But Jesus Christ never seemed to live that way. Think about the Savior. He had an eternal mission, he knew exactly what he had to accomplish, and yet he repeatedly stopped for individuals. The blind man, the leper, the woman at the well, the child, Zacchaeus, a grieving family, people who interrupted his schedule time and time again, people who weren't on the agenda. Jesus wasn't inefficient, he was intentional. That's different. Maybe discipleship isn't about doing more. Maybe discipleship is about becoming better at knowing what deserves our time. So when

Prioritizing Like A Pilot

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I'm flying an airplane, there are a hundred things that I could be paying attention to: engine instruments, navigation, weather, fuel, traffic, communications, performance, the destination. But not every piece of information deserves equal attention at every moment. I would go crazy if that happened. A good pilot prioritizes the information. And when we look at it, aviation has a hierarchy. You don't obsess over the cup holder while ignoring the engine. You don't spend 20 minutes perfecting the passenger briefing while you're flying toward a thunderstorm. You figure out what's most important right now. Life is the same way. The enemy doesn't always need you to go do something terrible. Sometimes all he has to do is keep you distracted by good things. Because if you're constantly occupied with the good, you may never get around to what is best. So what is best according to God? How do we term? How do we determine that? We don't simply ask, what do I want? We ask, what does God want me to become? That's a much deeper question. Doctrine Covenants 88, 118 says, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom. Notice the Lord didn't simply say seek with knowledge, he said seek the best. There's a hierarchy to what we consume, there's a hierarchy to what we believe, there's a hierarchy to what we pursue. There's a hierarchy in how we spend our lives. The question becomes, what is producing eternal value? So here's my challenge.

Four Questions For Every Choice

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Take your life and run everything through four questions. Question one, is this good? Maybe it is. That's only the beginning. Question two, is there something better I could be doing with this time? That's where prioritization begins. Question three, is this helping me become more like Jesus Christ? Now we're moving on to discipleship. And question four, if I keep doing this for the next five years, who will I become? Five minutes of scrolling isn't necessarily catastrophic. But five years of allowing your attention to be constantly captured, sitting and wasting. Maybe not wasting, but sitting and spending that time. Five years of your life. So what will you become in five years of doing what you're doing? Five minutes of complaining isn't necessarily the end of the world, but five years of negativity, that's a personality. Five minutes of prayer seems small, but five years of consistently seeking God, that's transformation. Five minutes of scripture reading may seem like a small amount. But five years of scripture reading, and you become very knowledgeable about the gospel. Good things still have an opportunity cost. We don't talk about this enough, but every good thing has an opportunity cost. If you spend two hours watching something entertaining, those two hours cannot also be spent reading scripture. If you spend every evening working, those evenings aren't available for your children. If you say yes to every church responsibility, you may eventually have no capacity left for your marriage. If you spend every waking hour building your business, you may accidentally build a successful business while destroying the relationships you built it for. That's the paradox. You can win at the wrong game. And I think that's one of Satan's most subtle strategies. Not necessarily getting you to choose evil, getting you to choose less important things over more important things. But

God People Purpose As Your Framework

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what does God want you to prioritize? Jesus gave us a remarkable hierarchy. When asked about the greatest commandment, he said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, with all thy mind. And then, he said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. It's Matthew 22, 37, 39. There's your framework, God, people, purpose. Everything else has to find its proper place underneath these priorities. That doesn't mean education doesn't matter. It does. Your career, your health, your finances, your creativity, your dreams, your responsibilities, they all matter, but they need to serve the eternal mission rather than replace it. Now don't confuse the best with the biggest. This is important. The best thing isn't always the biggest thing. Sometimes the best thing is incredibly small. A five-minute prayer, a sincere apology, a conversation with your child, reading one page of scripture, going to the temple, turning off your phone, calling someone who is lonely, choosing not to retaliate, getting on your knees and asking, Father, what should I do? Heaven isn't necessarily measuring the size of your actions. God is looking at the direction of your heart. Remember the Savior's teaching about the widow's might? She didn't give the most. She gave the least. She gave what she could. Heaven measures differently than the world. So there's another lesson to be learned from this. Maybe the question isn't just what should I do? It is who is God trying to help me become? I've been asking that a lot lately. Who is God trying to help me become? Because ultimately the gospel isn't a productivity system, it's a transformation system. Christ isn't simply trying to make you busier, he's trying to make you holy, more loving, more courageous, more disciplined, more intelligent, more compassionate, more compassionate, more faithful, more capable, more Christ-like. And sometimes becoming that person requires us to eliminate things that aren't bad, not because they're evil, but because they're in the way. I know I've had discussions both with myself and my wife, with others, that the hardest part of change and growing and improving is that you have to let parts of yourself die off. Parts of your personality that maybe you've gotten attached to. They were good, but they're not the best. And so your good life may need you to change, to become a better life. So this is where I challenge you. Maybe you're already living a good life, but ask yourself, what would happen if I stopped trying to do everything and started trying to do the right things? What would happen if you protected your marriage like it was sacred? What would happen if you treated your children as your most important leadership responsibility? What would happen if prayer wasn't something you squeezed into the day, but something you built your day around? What would happen if your physical health became stewardship instead of vanity? I just did an episode a few episodes back about how getting in shape, losing the weight, building muscle, protecting your body is actually can be a holy thing. Not if you're doing it for vanity, but if you're doing it because your body is a temple of God? What would happen if your education became preparation to serve rather than simply a way to make money? What would happen if your career became a vehicle for contribution rather than your identity? What would happen if your relationship with Jesus Christ became the organizing principle of your entire life? I'd say that's a move from good to better, wouldn't you? And eventually that would lead you to best. So

Audit Your Life And Swap Habits

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take out a piece of paper, write three columns, good, better, best, and then examine your life. Your phone, your entertainment, your work, your exercise, your relationships, your church service, your hobbies, your goals, your spiritual practices, your ambitions, your time, and ask, where am I spending time on good things that are preventing me from doing the best things? Then eliminate one thing. Right now I'm going through a challenge where we eliminate one bad habit. Although don't have too many bad habits, so it could be a good habit that's preventing me from doing a best habit. So for one month I've been eliminating one bad habit. Starting in September, I'll be eliminating two bad habits. You replace one thing on that list with something better. Maybe you replace 30 minutes of scrolling with reading scriptures or watching a conference talk, or maybe you replace complaining with gratitude, sending out messages of gratitude to friends, family. It has been a game changer for me lately. I've been doing a daily gratitude challenge where I express my gratitude for a friend or family member, and it's been great. I've been doing it for a month now, almost. Maybe you replace another hour of work with time with your spouse, go on a date night weekly. Maybe you replace entertainment with prayer, journaling. Maybe you replace consuming with creating. Maybe you replace fear with faith, busyness with intentionality. I want to leave you with this thought. One day, every one of us will look back on our life, and we're going to see something very clear. We're going to see what actually mattered. We're going to see that some things we thought were incredibly important weren't. And so some moments that seemed insignificant were everything. Conversation with your child, the hand you held, the person you forgave, the prayer you offered, the blessing you gave, the scripture you studied, the temptation you resisted, the opportunity you took to serve, the moment you chose Christ when nobody was watching. Those are the things that build a soul. And

What You Will See Looking Back

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the big thing is you never see 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds that they're nearing on their deathbed, saying, I wish I would have worked more. Usually they talk about the regrets of working too much, or spending too little time with their spouse, or wishing for one more day, one more day with you. Elder Oaks taught us that we have to give up some good things in order to choose things that are better or best, because those choices develop faith in Jesus Christ and strengthen our families. And that's the challenge. Don't only ask, is this good? Ask, is this better? And ultimately, is this best for me? Because your life is being built one choice, one day at a time. The goal isn't simply to have a busy life. It isn't even simply to have a successful life. The goal is to have a Christ-centered, happy life. A life that when you finally look back, you can say, I spent my time on things that mattered. I became the person God wanted me to become. I loved the people I was given, and I used my life to move closer to Jesus Christ. That's good, that's better, and that's best. I'm Todd and this is Todd Talk Spirit by Design. Don't just ask what you can do, ask what you should do, and then have the courage to choose the best.

Share Review And Choose Best

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If you like this episode, share it with your friends. Leave a five-star review. Could always use more of those. And as always, have a blessed day.