Want to know how to budget your time. Time is a limited resource and one you should be using wisely. Keep on reading to find out how to budget your time.
Budgeting your money is considered a fairly normal activity, yet most people don’t budget their time. That’s interesting when you think about it because money is limitless. There are always ways to make more money, but you can get any more time. No matter where in the world you are and how much money you have you only have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year.
Given that your time is limited you should be conscious about how you are spending it and that is where budgeting your time comes in.
HOW TO BUDGET YOUR TIME
1. Track how you are currently using your time
In order to start budgeting your time properly, you need to be aware of how much time it actually takes you to do things. Whilst you can easily make a budget based on estimates the fact is that most people will drastically underestimate how long they take to complete some things and overestimate how long they take to do other things. For a minimum of a week write down how you are spending your time. Try to be as accurate as possible and include everything. The more detailed you are the easier it will be to analyse.
If you are someone who has weeks that vary drastically then you might decide to track how you are spending your time for a few weeks to give you a better picture.
2. Review how you are using your time in relation to your priorities
Once you’ve got some records of how you are using your time you’ll need to review your time in relation to your priorities. There is no right or wrong way to be using your time. However, in an ideal world, you want to be spending as much time as possible in areas that are important to you. In most cases that is likely to include activities such as spending time with family and friends, taking care of your health, working, travelling, personal development etc.
If you don’t know what your priorities are then you should consider doing a wheel of life. A wheel of life is a great tool to help you look at the different aspects of your life and identify where you are doing well and where there is room for progress. You can find out more about the wheel of life and how to use it here.
3. Create your time budget
Armed with an idea of how you are currently spending your time and an idea of your priorities it is time to create your time budget. In most cases, it is easier to do a time budget for a week, but you might prefer to use a different time frame.
Each week has 168 hours so you need to start with that number and then allocate time for all of the essential activities you do and the time they take. For example, you might have 8 hours per day to sleep (56 hours per week) and 8 hours per weekday for work (40 hours per week). Already that is 96 hours of your week gone and would leave you with 72 hours for everything else. Once you’ve completed all of your essential activities you should calculate how many hours you have left. Then you want to look at non-essential activities and try to allocate time to the activities based on their importance to you.
Now budgeting time works similar to budgeting money. You might find that there isn’t enough time for everything you want to do. In that case, you’ll need to review your budget and see if there are any activities that you could spend less time on or stop doing completely. If not, then it may be that you have to acknowledge at the moment you can’t do everything and some things just aren’t possible at the moment.
If you aren’t able to include everything you want in your time budget then you can create a dream time budget and work towards it. For example, it might be in the future you plan on having a shorter commute or hiring a cleaner to free up time. Having a future time budget can help you understand where you are right now, but be optimistic about the future.
4. Use your time budget to plan your week
Once you’ve got an idea of how you want to use your time as a whole across the week you’ll need to actually plan your time using a diary or calendar. There is a difference between knowing you want to spend X hours per week on writing your book and actually having the exact time block out in your diary. Having a diary with time slots for all of your activities will mean you know exactly what you should be doing and when.
5. Follow your calendar and use a timer if necessary
By now you should have a calendar that tells you exactly what you should be doing every day and for how long. Because of the steps you’ve taken your calendar should hopefully allow you to spend large amounts of time aligned with what is important to you.
Now some people are great at following a calendar. However, if you are worried about getting carried away and overrunning then a timer or alarm should become your new best friend. It might be that you set an alarm for certain times of the day when you know you need to move from one activity to another. Or if you have blocked your time into short blocks (up to an hour) then you can use something like an egg timer to tell you to move from one thing to another.
That’s it! You now know how to budget your time.
As I mentioned at the beginning budgeting your time isn’t as common as budgeting your money, but successful people know that time is their most precious resource and should be used wisely.
I hope by following these steps you can feel in control of your time and that you are using it as wisely as possible.
In the comments, I would love to know what your biggest takeway has been.
