I often approach personal finance from a time perspective.  I firmly believe time is money, and what I really want is more time.  Give me enough time, and I’ll probably have enough money.   Many experts suggest that over the course of week or month that we should tally what we spend our money on.  They say carry a notepad and take notes.   I’ve done this in the past, and found it an incredibly useful exercise to see where I was really spending my money on.  It was probably one the first exercises I did when I was looking to get my financial house in order.

Today, I know where my dollars are going, and am happy with the allocation.  I only “waste” money on what I want to waste money on.   I ask myself now, can I say the same about time?  I’m often frantic, and when I’m not I complain about how little time I have.  However, I really don’t know where it goes.  Some people keep immaculate calendars.  I don’t.  I try to make sure my meetings are scheduled on my calendar at work, but that’s about it.   On the most part, I have little idea where all my time goes.

If it’s time that I’m really concerned about, I should be tracking it in some form.  I’m never going to be the type of person who keeps a super organized calendar, nor do I want to be.  What I do want to ensure is that I’m not wasting my time.  In the next week, having started today, I’m going to track how i spend my time down to the 15 minute increment.  Fifteen minutes may not be good enough for billing lawyers, but it’s good enough for me.

The point of this exercise is not to learn to keep a better schedule, but to be more efficient.  Effectively, I want to cut out the “lattes” in my schedule.   I don’t want to waste my time.   I moved last year to cut down my commute time.  However, it’s time to look again at where I can steal some time back from.  Check back with me next week to see how I’ve done.