G’Day,
We’ve all heard of the importance of drawing up a budget to manage and control where our money is going. Helping us to reach our monetry goals faster and easier. However, according to most of the top investors/mentors we all read and follow – time is our most precious commodity. In general time is our most precious commodity. It is something we all have and once spent, cannot be recovered.
So my question to the members of the forum is… Does anyone here have a time budget or given any thought towards one? Another way of putting it might be a weekly roster of your daily life that is divided up into hours and arranged in such a way that adequate time is allocated to all the necessities of your lives – most importantly investing?
We all have and make money and to some degree we all know where and how it will be used – i.e. a budget. Why not do this for the time we have available to us? Some people complain they cannot invest because they do not have the money – a simple budget and savings plan will help sort that. Some people complain of not having the time to invest – *click* a time budget to help with that?
I’m yet to begin my draft of one. But i have a fair idea of where i’m heading with it. Does anyone else have any thoughts about this? Do you use one? Have you considered it? Is it a viable option? Would it work…? Discuss.
Lumwood.
– “Life is what happens when your busy making other plans” –
Sounds like a great concept actually Lumwood. Kinda like a timetable for your entire day everyday of the week!
The closest I come to it would be a “to-do” list in my diary for any particular day. Not really broken down into a time budget as such.
But in all honesty, I’ll probably never get around to doing one, just like I really don’t have a budget!
Hi Lumwood,
Yes, good thinking. Probably our most important asset is our health while time is our most important “commodity”. The time problem is a viscoius cycle because most people are programmed for active income so in order to “survive” and achieve more income people tend to spend more time chasing that income. Then time available for other things such as relationships, and health activities diminshes to where the stress etc has detrimental effects on health and relationships.
I agree with you that although money is not limited, time is, and so time management becomes critical. You may have noticed that the really successful people are those that have a residual income rather than active income so that the time spent by most in chasing income is used for other purposes by these people.
Your time budgeting concept appears to me to be along the lines of prioritisation of time. In other words determine the order of importance of activities and then allocate the time accordingly.
As you have stated, monetary budgets are the result of setting goals which then allow plans to be set to achieve those goals. I see the time budgeting in a similar way. And if you want to increase the time available for other things then it makes sense to work towards replacing active income with residual income. This is exactly what I have done over the years and still budget my time but with greater flexibility and freedom.
Since you know what you want you will be in a much better position to budget your time according to your needs.
Good on you for your insights and the interesting post.
Cheers
pr
I have realised over the last year the importance of time management.
Throwing all spare time possible into investing (and money too), resulted in a seriously out of balance lifestyle. Health, socialisation, exercise, entertainment and family all being put on the back burner.
What resulted was an inefficient and depressing investment scenario that lacked balance in other areas of life.
A time budget seems brilliant.
Lumwood, how did you imagine you would structure yours. Would just allocate set hours to each part of your life, all would you write a schedule with fixed periods for each part of your life. Tuesdays 5-7pm = sport, tuesdays 8pm-10pm investing paperwork, etc???
How would you monitor and correct budget blowouts?
Live, Learn and GrowLifexperience
Geez Loueez, Who has time to make a time budget.
Hi Lumwood & all
I’ve had to do a time budget recently. It’s a great exercise in prioritising & ensuring balance. Basically, you can create your own with either Excel, or Word using a table format. You’ll need 2 columns with headings on the left & hours on the right. Allocate the 168 hours a week in order of importance, then schedule time into your diary or daily planner.
When I started doing it, the actual time that I spent doing things bore little resemblance to the planned schedule. I’m slowly getting there & using my diary far more effectively to plot & record my activities so that I know where I’m going & where I’ve been.
Here’re some of headings & sub-headings from the list I worked with. You can make up your own.
Family: children, parents, siblings
Work: full time profession, part time job, IP portfolio ïŠ
Education: graduate studies, work-related, personal development
Miscellaneous: eat, sleep, travel time
Diversions: Hobbies, exercise, internetIf you or anyone else would like to see the original 2-page document, please feel free to drop me an email.
“Budget enough time to purchase your most cherished goal first. Only then should the remaining time be used to purchase other essentials.â€
Happy planning & plotting
Starglow
I don’t have a time budget and when I’m in Australia on “time off”, when I actually work on the IP’s, couldn’t think of anything worse.
My working life is so strictly regimented time wise, I reckon I’d turn into an autotron if I tried that carry on with the time in Oz.
Like at exam time at Uni, or when a big lease deal or contract is about to be signed, I find the stress of a very strict deadline is enough motivation to extract maximum value and activity out of your time.
I couldn’t imagine applying the same to family and relaxation times…imagine the scene ;
Your sitting down with Granny and some cousins having a chat around some tea and scones…suddenly you jump up and say “Whoa, times up, gotta go work on the IP’s, seeya” ???
Cheers,
Dazzling
“No point having a cake if you can’t eat it.”
Whilst it sounds well intentioned, I doubt that you could be so methodical and precise with a time budget as you could with your financial budget. I mean, life in itself is so unpredictable and with most of us here fairly and squarely trapped on the 9 to 5 cycle, realistically what time is left to budget?? You come home, eat, play with the kids (or with whatever else…) for a while and then go to bed only to do the whole thing again the next day. What works for me is a prioritised task list (I keep two; one for personal, one for business). Every Saturday morning I set aside time to review our household budget, pay bills, check that tenants have been paying their rent into our bank account, and generally see how we are progressing. A bit of weekly health check if you like.
Put it this way. If someone is really motivated to invest (be it property, shares etc. etc.) they will make the time. If someone says that they don’t have the time, I suspect that their reason/s has more to do with reluctance than lack of time.
Eric
Hi Lumwood
I have used a time budget for many years with sometimes excellent and sometimes just worthwhile results. I have a full time job and only budget for core focussed activity that I want to achieve in excess of this eg time budgeting allowed me to complete my accounting degree on a full time basis whilst working in a demanding full time job. My current budgeted time is 12 hours per week and is very tightly focussed in 1 hour segments – I use a cooking timer for the 1 hour and totally concentrate on the subject of the session- this also means I can coast at other times knowing some essential things are taken care of.
Cheers
[biggrin]
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. If you don't have an account, you can register here.
