Time management: Pay yourself first

Where does the time go? Image by cmcbrown on Flickr

The title of this post comes from my High School Economics teacher, Mr. Shannon. From his list of what I'm sure were very astute financial tips, most of which are long-forgotten, this one has always stuck in my mind most firmly. I found myself thinking about it while considering how I'm going to balance my time over the coming year between work, roller derby, my personal life and working on career development and my book.

The idea behind "Pay yourself first" is this: as you earn money, no matter how small the amount, always put something aside into a savings account before spending it on the month to month costs, a new outfit or whatever (I've not been brilliant at doing this lately, but that is beside the point).

Time management is all about priorities. Of course some priorities are non-negotiable. I will always need to turn up to my full-time job, and I will always need to get exercise. However, it is the negotiable, unstructured time that needs to be carefully managed, particularly if you have some kind of non-work project, skill, etc. that you want to make progress with. It is extremely easy to lose hours to surfing the internet, watching TV, browsing in a bookshop etc. All of that is fine, even necessary sometimes, but it can be the enemy of anything you want to do outside the normal spheres of work, home, friends and clubs/sports/organisations.

That's why I think it's a good idea to "Pay yourself first" - make regularly scheduled time for those other projects like professional development reading, writing your book, perfecting your cooking, practicing piano, or whatever it is you want to make progress with in your own time - and STICK WITH IT. Treat that time as non-negotiable. You may feel like you're missing out on time with friends, or TV you want to watch (seriously, just binge watch it when it comes out on DVD, guys), or whatever, but you picked your priorities so you only have yourself to blame.

My partner suggested that we have a "professional development hour" once a week where we read or write something tangentially job-related and then discuss it with each other. I'm hoping we actually do this because it means that is time during which I can't do anything else but make progress on my own things and I'll have the chance to reflect by talking to my very smart and sympathetic partner about it. Hopefully I'll be better at that than the financial version.