Creating a time budget is like creating a financial budget, but it deals with time rather than money. Time budgeting is the process of allocating time to high priority tasks to help you achieve realistic goals and manage your daily life in a manner that allows you to have time to do or achieve what you would like.
A good place to start is to set out your regular tasks for each day of the week so you know exactly what time you have to play with. Can you maximise your time during any of these tasks? For example, my daughter does dance for 45 minutes twice a week. The first day I drop her off at dance then go and do some grocery shopping before picking her again. The second day I bring our dog along and walk her while my daughter is dancing. This way I am fully utilizing that time and doing tasks I would otherwise need to get done at another time.
I personally have a to-do list on my phone and do my weekly plans (a to do list for each day of the week) on paper each Sunday. On my phone I enter all tasks, both large and small, and tasks with wildly varying due dates. Then each Sunday I go through my diary to see what appointments I have during that week, list the regular tasks, and then fill some of the remaining time with tasks from my phone list. This means I am also reviewing my phone to-do list each week and deciding on the priority of each task, whether it is to be done this week or if it is ok to postpone it to another week if there is no time remaining this week. For example, two of my current phone tasks are to sew up a pair of socks and to clean out the shed. I would consider sewing up the socks as both quicker and more urgent than cleaning out the shed, hence I have allocated time for sewing this week but have left cleaning the shed for another time.
Important things to consider:
- You need to allocate enough time for sleep, relaxation and “you” time. As a parent we are often tempted to keep going to do more for our children or to try to fit in extra things into a tight schedule. If we continue to run ourselves into the ground we start to accrue a sleep debt which is not good for us physically or mentally. Plus we can often end up being grumpy and this can damage family life and relationships.
- Have something to look forward to. Sometimes when we have something to look forward to, it may end up creating more tasks to be done in order to achieve it, but you are happier, with more motivation to do those tasks and this can rub off onto other more mundane tasks becoming more enjoyable, or at least less tiresome, to do.
- You need room for flexibility. It is natural to have things crop up that you were weren’t expecting or for things not to go according to plan. You need to have some flexibility built into your weekly plan to deal with such events. Being very rigid and allocating tasks to every hour of your day can lead to frustration, stress and disappointment when things don’t work out. Plus, there are going to be days where you really can’t get motivated to do anything but the bare essentials. Don’t be hard on yourself. Allow yourself some time out and get back on track when you feel able.
By doing some time budgeting you will maximise what you can do with your time. If you plan out your days you may get more time for other goals. And what goal? This is entirely up to you and what you as an individual feel is important to you. You might have an organizational type of goal like cleaning out the shed! You might have the goal of having more quality time with family and just feeling generally happier and less stressed. I am trying to teach myself German for 1 hour each Friday morning 😊.
Everyone has their own goals in life. This is just a note to help you allow some of those goals to be realized, even if the goal is to live life more gently.
About the Author
Sally is a home organisation and budgeting expert with a passion for helping families take the stress out of everyday tasks by creating simple, efficient and cost-effective processes. Her strategies can result in more time and energy being available to spend time doing what you love. Sally is a quiet budgeting queen, home organisation specialist, wife, mother, animal-loving mathematician and so much more.
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