Just because something is good is not enough reason to do it.

Magnifying our callings does not usually mean to complicate them. Often it means to simplify.

2008 RS/Priesthood manual
Teachings of the Prophets: Joseph Smith

Just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it. The number of good things we can do far exceeds the time available to accomplish them. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives.

Even though a particular choice is more costly, its far greater value may make it the best choice of all.

The amount of children-and-parent time absorbed in the good activities of private lessons, team sports, and other school and club activities also needs to be carefully regulated. Otherwise, children will be overscheduled, and parents will be frazzled and frustrated. Parents should act to preserve time for family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, and the other precious togetherness and individual one-on-one time that binds a family together and fixes children’s values on things of eternal worth. Parents should teach gospel priorities through what they do with their children.

There is inspired wisdom in this advice to parents: What your children really want for dinner is you.

“I ask you men, particularly, to pause and take stock of yourselves as husbands and fathers and heads of households. Pray for guidance, for help, for direction, and then follow the whisperings of the Spirit to guide you in the most serious of all responsibilities, for the consequences of your leadership in your home will be eternal and everlasting.”(“Each a Better Person,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2002, 100.)

Church leaders should be aware that Church meetings and activities can become too complex and burdensome if a ward or a stake tries to have the membership do everything that is good and possible in our numerous Church programs.

Elder Richard G. Scott said: “Make sure that the essential needs are met, but do not go overboard in creating so many good things to do that the essential ones are not accomplished. . . . Remember, don’t magnify the work to be done – simplify it.”

Elder M. Russell Ballard warned against the deterioration of family relationships that can result when we spend excess time on ineffective activities,h e cautioned against complicating our Church service “with needless frills and embellishments that occupy too much time, cost too much money, and sap too much energy. . . . The instruction to magnify our callings is not a command to embellish and complicate them. To innovate does not necessarily mean to expand; very often it means to simplify. . . . What is most important in our Church responsibilities is not the statistics that are reported or the meetings that are held but whether or not individual people have been lifted and encouraged and ultimately changed.” (“O Be Wise,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2006, 18 – 20.)

Stake presidencies and bishoprics need to exercise their authority to weed out the excessive and ineffective busyness that is sometimes required of the members of their stakes or wards. Church programs should focus on what is best without unduly infringing on the time families need for their “divinely appointed duties.” But here is a caution for families. Suppose Church leaders reduce the time required by Church meetings. This will not achieve its intended purpose unless individual family members – especially parents – vigorously act to increase family togetherness and one-on-one time.

Some young men and women are skipping Church youth activities or cutting family time in order to participate in soccer leagues or to pursue various entertainments. Some young people are amusing themselves to death – spiritual death.

To our hundreds of thousands of home teachers and visiting teachers, I suggest that it is good to visit our assigned families; it is better to have a brief visit in which we teach doctrine and principle; and it is best of all to make a difference in the lives of some of those we visit. That same challenge applies to the many meetings we hold – good to hold a meeting, better to teach a principle, but best to actually improve lives as a result of the meeting.