What’s in Budgeted Time?

The Components of Budgeted Time

Budgeted Time – Part 1

In this next section of “A Different Time Management Philosophy,” we are getting down to work. We’re going to do our best to help you put these principles and concepts into action. It is one thing to know the science or theory behind a process you need for one’s life, but it is another to know how to use it. With that said I’d like to outline the practices we will cover over the next few weeks as it relates to planning and time management.

1. Live By Budgeted Time
   In everything we do there are time markers that have been set. Understanding that we have time marked out to get things done is one thing, but to apply this concept to one’s life holistically is another. I was recently with a close friend who was very excited to share with me how he’d been putting this practice into action and what a game changer it has been. You may not know this but marking off time is one of the tools used by even God to get things done. I call this process budgeting your time and in this section we will talk about how to live by budgeted time.

2. The Concept of Budgeting Your Time
   In this installment, we will define what budgeting time is and relate it to how individuals budget money or their financial resources. For budgeting our finances, we actually use a tool called a budget. For budgeting time, there is a tool available that most rarely use. It’s called a calendar.

3. Guidelines for Managing One’s Calendar
   In this lesson, we discuss what you can find in a time budget. In a financial budget, you find bills, miscellaneous expenses, debts, etc. However, what are some of the normal categories of time you expect or should expect to find in your time budget?

4. Budgeting Your Decades
   Now that we understand what to expect when budgeting our time, let’s begin entering our budget. We will start with a high-level approach using our decades and work our way down. We start here because decade events are the big stones we wish to gain, achieve, or produce that must be on our budget if we wish to accomplish them.

5. Budgeting Your Year
   Next we will look at what it takes to budget for a year. You might be thinking this is extreme, but it’s not. You’ll come to find out that a year isn’t as long as you think. You will also find out how easy it becomes to waste an entire year if you’re not budgeting for your time.

6. Budgeting Your Month and Weeks
   After we’ve budgeted for our year, then we need to put this into months and weeks. What should a month of your time look like? What do you wish to see happen in a week’s time? These are important questions when living a life of purpose or one you wish to take to the next level.
   By the way, we often feel as if we have it all figured out because of the normal rhythms of life, but there’s so much more we wish to do and that’s where planning for your weeks and months comes in.

7. Budgeting Your Days
   Budgeting for one day is my favorite exercise. We naturally think we can do waaay more in a day than we actually can. When you see your day budgeted out, it will surprise you as to how little time you have in your day. That’s why it is so important to budget your day.

8. Set Your Book Ends
   I wish I could remember the book that taught me the principles of adding bookends to my day. In fact, I’ve carried this principle a little further than that teaching, but adding bookends to time marked is very helpful. Pamela and I have bookends for our weeks and even for our year.

This section of “Next Level Planning: A Different Time Management Philosophy” is what you’ve been waiting for. It’s time to put the principles we’ve learned from others into place and use them to, you know, take our lives to the next level.

Question: have you ever considered budgeting your time like one who budgets one’s finances?

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