Like many precious commodities, time usually isn't valued until it has been lost. Unlike other precious commodities, however, time that is lost can never be replaced. Money lost can be replaced through hard work. A home destroyed by fire, flood, earthquake or other disaster can be rebuilt. But time wasted is gone forever and cannot be replenished.

On June 5, Shell Oil Company released results of a survey indicating that the majority of those polled value time more than money: If given the choice of an extra day off from work every two weeks or an extra day's wages or salary during the same time frame, significantly more employed adults would prefer the extra time (58 percent) to the extra money (40 percent). The gap widens for working adults age 35 to 64: two-thirds (67 percent) say they would prefer the extra time.

How we spend our time is a serious matter. When we do not plan well, we miss opportunities to serve, develop relationships or share lives. One example is found in the experience of a woman who relates that many years ago she was busy preparing for a talk to be given in sacrament meeting that evening when her young niece came into the room to show off a new dress: "I complimented the dress. But that wasn't all the child wanted; she hung around, occasionally asking a question. It was obvious that she wanted to spend some time with me, maybe even talk about school or something else that was on her mind. But I told her I was busy and that we could visit later. I'd had ample time to prepare the sacrament meeting talk during the week, but put off completing it until just a few hours before the meeting was to start. I was strapped for time to finish preparing. For the life of me, I can't remember what I said in that sacrament meeting talk, but I cannot forget the look of disappointment on that child's face when I told her I was too busy to talk to her. Now I'd give anything for the chance to spend some time with that little girl."

In 1970, when he was Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve, President Spencer W. Kimball spoke in the October general conference about biblical references to locusts that ate every "green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt." (Exodus 10:15.) President Kimball spoke of "lost weekends and wasted years" as time that "the locust hath eaten."

One person was heard to lament that everyone "seems to be so busy with their lives that they don't have time to live their lives." We are allocated 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week. True, many things press on us, demanding our time. Quite often, many of us think we are spending our time wisely because we are in pursuit of good, lofty, noble ideals. But are we making good use of our time simply because we're pursuing good things? Could some judicious rearrangement of schedules allow us to make better use of our time?

A Relief Society sister had concerns about her family. She had done all she felt she could to find solutions to problems but still felt anxiety. Needing fresh air and some kind of diversion, she called one of her visiting teachers and asked if they might go for a brief walk together on that mid-week afternoon. The visiting teacher expressed concern, but said she could not spend time with the sister that day because she was working on a Relief Society lesson. The lesson was two weeks away and, ironically, was on the topic of reaching out to those in need. Was it good for the visiting teacher to spend time preparing her lesson? Of course, it was. But, certainly, she could have found some other time to spend on the lesson in order to serve a sister who had come to her for help.

Near the end of his life, a father looked back on how he had spent his time on earth. An acclaimed, respected author of numerous scholarly works, he said, "I wish I had written one less book and taken my children fishing more often."

Time passes quickly. Many parents say that it seems like yesterday that their children were born. Now those children are grown, perhaps with children of their own. "Where did the years go?" they ask. We cannot call back time that is past, we cannot stop time that now is, and we cannot experience the future in our present state. Time is a gift, a treasure not to be put aside for the future but to be used wisely in the present.

Merely keeping busy is not necessarily evidence that we are using our time wisely. It is with what we are busy that counts.