Yes, you do have enough time – you just don’t realize it yet!

If you are like me, there are too many things to get done in your day.

Or maybe it just seems that way…

In many of my previous articles, I talk about the need to not only create a to-do list/task list but also to schedule tasks. And now you run into another problem.

“I don’t have enough time!”

Yes, you do have enough time, but right now you don’t realize it. And why is that? Because you’ve never done a “time budget”

What is a Time Budget?

If you talk to any financial planner, or just to your more monetarily successful friends, they’ll tell you to make a budget and stick to it. Know your expenses, don’t spend more than you take in, and start a savings/investment plan.

A time budget works the same way, except with time instead of money. It’s actually very simple to start a time budget. Here is my 4-week outline to start yours.

In your first two weeks don’t do anything different than what you do now – except for one thing. Write it down. And I mean write everything down… When do you eat and for how long, what do you watch on TV, and how much time do you spend watching it. How much time do you spend on social media and how much time do you spend on self-improvement. You can also adapt this to your job. How much time do you spend in meetings, on e-mail, in conferences, etc.

In the third week, it’s time to add up the numbers. With notes in hand, add up how much you spend per week on each activity. No matter how mundane it is, just write it down and add it up. Now you should have an outline of how much time you “spend” each day and each week doing whatever it is you do.

In the fourth week, it’s time to ask yourself what is truly necessary. Just like a fiscal budget shows you where your money is being wasted, a time budget shows you how much time is being wasted. You might be very surprised. Maybe it's spending up to 3 or more hours a day watching TV, or even longer on social media. Perhaps it is spending time in unproductive meetings that could be cut far shorter.

In one month, you can have an extra hour of productivity per day!

Now comes the 5th week. It’s time to cut the fat. Look for small savings first and work to cut down just 5% of your wasted time and replace it with more productive time. Think 5% is meaningless? Think again. During a typical workday, 5% of your time is close to ? an hour. In your personal life that 5% adds up to an hour a day. Now that is a lot of time and you’re just starting out!

Do you have a company or regional division located in South Florida? I’d love to work for you, in your Public Relations, Content Development, or Journalism departments. Please contact me.

Learn how to change your life one hour at a time, get my book "The 5% Mastery Method" on Amazon Kindle Today!

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