How Much Time?

byKBobTeacher

1.4K followers

5 months ago

As the saying goes, time waits for no one. That is a true statement if ever there was/is a true statement.

How much time do we have?

We all have exactly the same amount of time!

That’s right. I said it.

We all have 24 hours in a day, which is 168 hours for a week. Nobody has even one second more or less.

Where we differ is how/where and why we spend the time we spend.

By the way, there’s no credit, there’s no refunds and no returns on time. You can only use what you get. Use it or lose it. It’s that simple.

What I’ve had to learn the hard way is to budget time as if it is money. Some say time is money. If you see it that way, then budgeting time like money shouldn’t be a problem.

Furthermore, I had to learn how to budget money and time. It didn’t occur to me until later that I could treat them the same way.

I have declared bankruptcy not once, but twice. Both times, it was because I over-extended myself on credit. It’s easy to do that in our society.

We don’t have the “luxury” of over-extending ourselves with time.

Regarding money, I learned to create separate accounts for different aspects of my life. For example: necessities, financial freedom, education, fun, travel, contingencies, and giving.

Notice, I didn’t say anything about emergencies. That's what insurance is for.

My goal is to not spend one cent more on necessities than 55% of my income. I’m not there yet. Furthermore, I learned from reading the book “The Richest Man in Babylon” that before I pay anyone anything, regardless of how much, at least 10% is put aside for me.

I always pay myself first.

At the very least, I needed to learn to live on no more than 90% of my income, no matter what!

Currently, I am in the 75-80% range, sometimes 70%.

There are times when I’ve had to decide to either cut expenses or increase my income, sometimes both.

It can be done.

Sometimes, that has meant making some serious life changes.

Now, getting back to budgeting time like it’s money, I’ve learned to break up my days into 15-minute increments and divide my time accordingly.

For me, necessities include work, eating, exercise, and sleep. I won’t go into all the details of how I break up the rest of the week, but the necessities are called what they’re called because they are necessary to my health, which to me, is the most important aspect of my life.

I will say that I allot time for fun in my time budget. I firmly believe in the adage that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Having said that, if you have never read the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey, I highly recommend it.

The author breaks down time into four quadrants: Quadrant 1 is urgent and important. Quadrant 2 is non-urgent and important. Quadrant 3 is urgent and not important. Quadrant 4 is non-urgent and non-important.

He says that we should spend time in each quadrant.

If you had to guess, which quadrant would you say is where the author says we should spend 50-70% of our time?

If you said quadrant 1, you’d be wrong!

He says we should spend 50-70% of all our time in quadrant 2.

He also says that if you are spending more than 10 % of your time in quadrant 1, your life is out of control. He calls living in quadrant 1, brushfire management.

By gaining control of our time, or budgeting, as it were, we are more effective if we are relaxed and for the most part, in control of our time.

I found that to be 100% accurate.