By Emily Guy Birken on 27 August 2019
Back when I was in college, a friend consistently asked for
extensions on her essays. One evening, she mentioned the overwhelming relief
she felt when she asked for a 24-hour extension, only to feel the exact same
deadline anxiety and stress the following day as her new deadline
approached.
While I had trouble relating at the time — I was a stickler for
deadlines as a student — becoming a freelance writer has made me understand the
alternating waves of dread/relief/dread that occurs when you put off a
deadline.
What's interesting about this kind of poor time management cycle
is that it's similar to the cycle of debt that occurs when you struggle with
money management. In both cases, you're putting off thinking about future
demands on your time or money because you're focused on the issues right in
front of you. You put off your deadline, or borrow money to pay your rent,
forgetting that there's another deadline or bill coming right behind the one
you temporarily stalled.
The good news is that if you're actively tracking your spending
and sticking to your budget,
then you've already mastered time management skills — you just think of them as
money management skills. But applying the following budgeting skills to time
management will help you feel well-planned and stress free. (See also: 10 Time-Management Fails — and How to
Fix Them)
Pay yourself first
We all know that planning to save whatever money is left at the
end of the month is a good way to never save anything at all. That's why paying yourself first is
one of the most important rules of good budgeting. Making sure that your
financial plans are funded — before you let today's wants drain your savings —
allows you to be a step ahead of future problems.
If you struggle with time management, you can also get ahead of
future problems by paying yourself first. The trick is to take about 15 minutes
each morning to review your calendar and make plans before you jump into your
work for the day.
You might feel like you don't have enough time to take 15
minutes each morning for planning. After all, Sheryl in accounting needs that
report ASAP and you still haven't prepared for the meeting with the boss.
But skipping your 15 minutes of planning is like forgoing your
savings at the beginning of the month. It leaves you unprepared for things that
you could've easily seen coming. Just like a transfer to savings at the
beginning of every month means you won't be surprised by an emergency bill (or
retirement, for that matter), committing to 15 minutes of planning each morning
means you won't be caught blindsided by plans, meetings, deadlines, or other
scheduling needs that you might otherwise overlook.
Automate
It's a lot easier to save money or pay bills if you don't have
to think about it. Setting up an automatic withdrawal from your account every
payday means you never have to think about transferring money to your emergency
fund or 401(k), and automatic bill pay ensures you never miss a payment. You
can simply let the automation do its magic without having to remember a
thing.
Your time management will work better if it's similarly
effortless.
Start by finding any recurring tasks you perform, and set up a
way to make them occur automatically. For instance, if you receive a number of
emails that require similar responses, creating email templates can help you
automate your emails. Instead of crafting a new response each time, you can
simply use your templates.
In addition, automatic reminders via your calendar app can help
you to get your recurring tasks done. If you're consistently late turning in
your receipts for reimbursement, an automatic reminder can help you remember
the due date, give you a nudge a week before to start gathering your receipts,
and remind you two days prior to organize your receipts before turning them in.
(See also: How to Manage Your Money When You're
Too Busy to Think About It)
Track your spending
It's difficult to know where your spending leaks are if you
don't know where your money goes. This is why tracking your spending is such an
important part of budgeting. You need to understand where you're being wasteful
to know what expenses you can cut.
Time management requires the same understanding of how you
spend. How many of us feel like we're terribly time crunched, only to realize
we spend hours on social media. Until you know where you spend your time,
you'll struggle to find more time to do the things most important to you.
Tracking your time can seem overwhelming, but it can help you
pinpoint where your days are going. There are several apps that can help you
track how and where you spend your time, including Toggl and RescueTime.
However, keeping an old school time tracker (i.e., on paper) may
be even more helpful. As with financial tracking, remembering that you'll have
to write down a wasteful decision (whether that's buying something you don't
need or watching a YouTube video while you're supposed to be studying) can give
you second thoughts about your choice.
Whether you use technology or paper to track your time, having a
snapshot of how you use that time can help you avoid the big time-wasters.
Spending hours going down a Twitter rabbit-hole does not help you reach your
goals, and tracking helps you realize just how much of a time-suck it is to
just "quickly check" your feed. (See also: 5-Minute Finance: Track Your Spending)
Your productivity budget
Just like handling your budget, staying on top of your time
management is hard, but not impossible. Using the skills you've practiced on
your finances can help you feel more in control of your time. And that feeling
of control will always feel better than any extension on a deadline.
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