Manage your time as you manage your money

It is no coincidence that we use identical expressions for both:

• We save time just as we save money.
• We lose hours just as we lose capital.
• We invest time just as we invest euros.
• We give time to volunteering just as we donate money.
• We waste time just as we waste financial resources.

Time and money work together, we exchange one for the other: our time for a salary (money) or money to save time (by hiring a service that simplifies our lives).

The big difference: time is limited

You can grow your income, your money, infinitely! You can even get it back if you lose it. Time, however, is not. We all have exactly the same 24 hours, regardless of whether you are a student, an employee or the director of a large company.

That makes it your most valuable resource: the key is to make the most of every hour to get closer to your goals, both personal and professional, and feel comfortable with your decisions.

Manage your time as you manage your finances

Maintaining healthy finances relieves you of present and future worries and allows you to enjoy a nice holiday. Similarly, managing your time in a healthy way will reduce your stress and allow you to enjoy extra time to devote to what really matters to you.

How about starting to manage your time as you manage your finances?

1. Assess how you spend your time
2. For one week, write down what you do every 30 minutes. This exercise will reveal where your time really goes. Then classify your activities into:
3. Fixed expenses: sleeping, eating, working, travelling. These are the ‘fixed expenses’ of your time budget.
4. Lifestyle: family, sport, leisure. These represent your consciously chosen ‘variable expenses’.
5. Investments: training, reading, networking, planning.
6. Whims: enjoyable but non-essential activities.
7. Vices: hours wasted on social media or compulsive distractions.

Any working week is valid; you will always have some exceptions, but don’t let that be an excuse for not analysing how you use your time!

1. Save time as you would save money
2. Group tasks together (shop or cook once a week instead of daily).
3. Use technology to automate.
4. Delegate non-strategic routine tasks.
5. Set clear limits: if you spend 1 hour a day on social media, cut it down to 30 minutes and you will have regained entire hours each week.

Be imaginative and try different techniques until you find one that works.

1. Create your time budget. Just like with finances, you need a plan:
2. Set aside non-negotiable blocks of time for essentials (rest, health, family).
3. Set spending limits: a time limit for stopping work, maximum time on your mobile phone.
4. Review your plan weekly and adjust it.
5. Be patient with yourself; change takes time.

The silent enemy: distractions

Distractions are like financial ‘petty expenses.’ A few minutes here, a few minutes there, and at the end of the day, they add up to hours.

• Internal distractions: Our brain does not function like a diary. Instead of reminding us what to do at the right time, it constantly scans for ‘open loops’ and randomly brings them to our consciousness, interrupting our concentration and generating worries. A good solution is to delegate to an external system (diary, app or notebook) where you write down everything that needs to be done and implement a tracking method that allows you to free your brain from those open loops.
• External distractions: mobile and PC notifications are specially designed to capture your attention. Here the solution is obvious: mute all notifications and check emails or messages only at specific times of the day. If you are afraid of missing something important, agree with your family, friends, colleagues and bosses on a means of notification for really urgent matters. How about a phone call?

The real return: your free time

The time you free up by organising yourself is not a luxury, it is the reward for good management. And you can reinvest it in what really generates value for you:

• Training and growing personally or professionally.
• Spending it on your family or yourself.
• Innovating, planning and thinking long term.
• Or simply resting, which is also productive.

A 30-day plan

And so you don’t get lazy, here’s a simple plan to get you started on managing your time

• Week 1: Record all your activities without changing anything.
• Week 2: Classify and identify time leaks.
• Week 3: Apply some simple changes (turn off notifications, group tasks, set limits). I don’t recommend starting with all of them at once.
• Week 4: Adjust your time budget, try new strategies to save time.

Once you’ve become a master of saving time, you can start investing that time to work for you: implement a method that allows you to objectively capture all your tasks, ideas, and commitments, reminding you what to do and when. There are several options for this, but the one I like best is David Allen’s Getting Things Done method, as I find it reliable and easy to use. If you’re interested, you can learn more in other blog articles.

Money can be recovered, but wasted time is irretrievable.

That’s why learning to manage it well is a key skill for anyone.

It’s not about doing more things, but about giving more value to each hour and feeling comfortable with your decisions. Those who achieve this do not live running after the clock, but turn time into their best ally.

Remember, ‘Just as money is invested, time is used. Free time is the return on good management.’