We often quip that to cross items off our bucket lists, we just need time and money. But even when these resources are in short supply, I want to have fun. Even though a trip to Paris is currently out of reach, for the cost of 90 minutes and $20, I can grab brunch with a friend at a local French café. The Internet abounds with strategies for managing money and finding that $20. But what about your time?
168 Hours
I’ve long enjoyed the work of time management expert Laura Vanderkam. She advocates tracking your time on weekly spreadsheets and frequently highlights the fact that few of us take the time to multiply out “24/7” to see that we have 168 hours in a week. Her book titled (you guessed it) 168 Hours discusses the power of planning in terms of weeks. I Know How She Does It follows real women who have figured out to “make the most of their time”.
The amount of money you have to manage depends on many factors. (And I recommend Laura’s All the Money in the World for her unique perspective on money.) But we all have the same amount of time. Despite this, overlapping metaphors describing time and money abound. We speak of “saving,” “spending,” and even “borrowing” time. The phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul” can easily apply to a late night spent studying for the next day’s exam. We speak of “investing” time, though the dividend of such investments can’t be more time. We say time is a thief, and, of course, time is money.
Time Can Be Budgeted
What I don’t hear people say as often is that time can be budgeted. Yes, Laura and many other time management experts advocate planning your time. Planning tools and podcasts abound. (I’m partial to Best Laid Plans, hosted by Sarah Hart-Unger.) But I rarely hear anyone describe time management as similar to budgeting.
As an Enneagram One I love budgeting. Rules! Accuracy! When it comes to budgeting my money, I’m a huge fan of YNAB* (You Need a Budget). YNAB’s premise is simple: Give every dollar a job. As their website explains, “You assign every dollar you have to one of your expense categories in YNAB based on what’s important and when it’s due. Then you check your plan prior to spending and make changes as needed along the way by moving money between categories.”
This seems like a pretty good way to handle time too. And using this approach has significantly increased the amount of time I choose to spend on fun. Here’s what you need to know to get started.
Start by Tracking Your Time
Because I’ve followed Laura for many years, I’ve gone through various seasons of tracking my time. I also have an extremely high sense of urgency, and I love a routine, so I have a sense of how long various tasks take me. Laura notes that people often overestimate the number of hours they spend working in a given week. I likely underestimate how much time I scroll Instagram. If you have no idea how long it takes you to fold a load of laundry, pick up (and put away) groceries, or get yourself ready in the morning, start tracking your time. After all, you wouldn’t be able to set up an effective budget if you didn’t know how much your bills were.
To do this, Laura suggests using a spreadsheet with a column half-hour increments. Simply pause a few times a day and fill in what you’ve done since you last checked in. If you want to get more granular, you can use a time tracking app that lets you track various categories, such as Toggl. You can also just make a mental note that getting door to door for the school drop off routinely takes 40 minutes when you’ve been telling yourself it’s 30 because of that one day with no traffic. You don’t have to be exact, but it’s helpful to have a general idea of how long your routine tasks take.
Give (Almost) Every Hour a Job
Here’s where a time budget differs from most planning approaches. Once you have a general idea of how much time your usual tasks take, you’re going to “budget” your 168 hours accordingly, not by day but by week. Yes, you get to use a spreadsheet.
First, decide how much time you want to spend on sleep. I try to be in bed from 9:30 to 5:30. When I’m consistent with this, I generally feel rested, and I have about an hour in the morning before my kids get up. That leaves me with 16 waking hours per day, or 112 hours per week. If you work full time, I suggest determining how many hours you have in a week after your sleep needs are subtracted and then subtracting the number of hours you intend to work. Because work time is often fixed, you may not need as much buffer time as I do for transitions and other unexpected events.
For a while, I tried giving all 112 hours a job. This generally didn’t go well. My toddler needs diaper changes at unexpected times. I have two girls who want to color with me or get dropped off at a friend’s house. I am a person existing in this unpredictable world, and I can’t always predict how I will need to spend my time. However, I am very routine-oriented, and I do find that most weeks I can stick to my plan if I leave some room for the unexpected. So I’ve found that if I plan about 14 hours’ worth of stuff in my 16-hour day, it mostly happens.
Now, that might make me sound like a martyr or a workaholic. But here’s the thing: that 14 hours’ worth of stuff is whatever I want it to be. It’s eating breakfast. It’s working out. It’s driving carpool. It’s working part-time. It’s just the stuff of life. But because I generally know how long my tasks and commitments take, every Sunday, I sit down and try to give 98 hours a job for the next week. If I’m way over, I know I’m overcommitted and need to figure out where to scale back for the week. If I’m under, I’ve started looking for pockets of fun to add in.
In my next post, I’ll give you more of the nitty-gritty of how this works. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the relationship between time and money. Do you have a planning system that works for you? Have you ever thought about budgeting your time like you do your money? Let me know in the comments!
*Give YNAB a try using my link, and we each get a free month!
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