How to Use your Time more Efficiently (Time Budget method)
Ideally, you have a monthly budget to manage your finances. You know how much to allocate to rent, transportation, education and investments. The budget might be more or less detailed, but at least, you've got some idea of where your money is going. This process comes to fruition mainly because income is limited — a scarce resource, at least, when having a short-term perspective.
Following the same argument, time is another scarce resource, even more, scarcer than money. You can buy anything with a credit card, but not time. (Not exactly true, if we consider investing in health and longevity a way to get more time, but you get the idea). So, why not establish a time-budget? This results in the allocation of time to different areas to manage priorities in the best possible way.
Consider this decision: spending a full-month salary in a new fur coat, with no leftover to cover rent, transportation and food. A dumb decision, right? Consider another decision: being busy 30 hours per week, accomplishing no meaningful goal, or making progress in priorities. A dumb decision, right? No! A really dumb decision. You might be able to get a loan to pay the rent or use a credit card. But you can never get those hours back.
When I was exposed to the idea of time-budgeting, I was astonished by how simple, yet brilliantly logical it was. When resources are scarce, we better manage them smartly. But in this case, and oppositely to what happens with money, we all have the same budget — 168 hours, every week. The question is how well we allocate the budget to the different projects and priorities.
Laura Vanderkam, the author of the book "168 Hours", found we have little clarity of where our time is going. And with no clarity, you can't choose differently. Should you turn left or right, if you don't know where you are?
How to Budget your Time:
1) Track your time for a week with the intent of understanding where your hours are going. The revelations might surprise you: finding the 20 hours per week reading the news or the 10 hours scrolling social media. The key is conducting an audit of your time, and being honest of it is being spent. To track my time, I use Toggle. It is completely free and works on all devices.
“What gets measured, gets managed.”
2) Categorize your life to find how you want to spend time. Let's say: work, meditation, reading, side-hustle, hobby, sports, etc. I've split my life into 2 core areas:
— Professional
— Personal
Inside the professional bucket, I introduced 2 main segments:
Professional:
Business
Master's Degree.
Inside the personal, I have got different segments split into 2 main categories.
Personal:
Growth
Playing the Drums
Learning (podcasts + books + training)
Skill acquisition
Maintenance
Work-Out
Meditation
Planning
Journaling
3) Allocate weekly hours to each segment. We have 168 hours — what if every hour was filled purposefully, with what matters to us? There is no right or wrong, generally. Only what is right or wrong specifically for you. The key is reflecting on the goals you want to achieve, the things that make you happy, and carve out time for them.
As a potential source of inspiration, I pretend to only have 6 days in a week for the professional category. This means I will work more intensively for 6 days but carve out a day of recharge. It also means that the "no-work-day" will be dedicated to nurturing relationships and spending quality time with those I love.
Since I started incorporating this system in my life, I've been much more productive, organized, and most importantly, happy. It's easy to complain about lack of time, but I've certainly found that a huge part of it comes down to lack of priorities, lack of clarity and lack of motivation to experiment. They can all be solved, as long as you have the will to challenge your assumptions and better manage your time.