Why don't we budget time?

It seems like everything I read about personal finances, one of the first things people recommend is having a budget. Except those that don't like the word "budget" they say have a spending plan. But the idea is always the same - plan what you are going to spend, and then follow the plan.

Pretty much the same goes with eating healthy. People plan what they are going to eat and then follow the plan. Examples include Weight Watchers (points system), Paleo (don't eat junk), and things like Nutrisystem (buy our food and eat that).

The one thing that people seem to not really think about budgeting is time. There are scads of methods of doing todo lists, project planning, prioritizing etc, etc. But very little similar to what I would consider a time budget.

Let's do a comparison. If you go out and spend money, you eventually run out of cash, overdraw your checking account, or hit your credit limit. You know when you have run out. You can do the envelope system or follow a budget and keep from going that far if you track your spending and stop before you hit your limit on any category.

Time: it is often that you can start on email, Facebook, Twitter, or maybe looking at cute cat pictures on Reddit and next thing you know what in the world it is 3AM, you meant to go to bed by 10:30 PM because you have to get up at 6AM the next day to go to work.

Very few people I have heard of do a time budget. In the above example - maybe at 10PM you could set a limit of 30 minutes to goof off on the Internet before going to sleep.

Is it hard? Or is it just something no one thinks about that often?

April 2013 Goals - progress update #1

At the beginning of the month, I had a post about my goals for the month of April 2013 which seems to be going entirely too fast - especially for those late in filing their taxes. Luckily this doesn't include me.

Here is the list of goals I had planned and how I am faring on each of them.

Health:
* Work out every day at least 10 minutes - I'm hitting 100% on this one so far. Some days I barely get it in. My 3 1/2 year old daughter absolutely begs to do a kettlebell workout with me. This is not what you could call an intense workout, but it is a work. I'm rotating been that, a walk on the treadmill, Nike+ Kinect, and running outside now that the weather got nicer.

* Eat 80% paleo diet - this is one I'm probably getting right about half the time. Although I am not really tracking exactly what I eat so I couldn't tell you how far off I am for sure. Eating out and bringing junk food into the house for the wife and kids are my downfall here.

* Get down to 195 pounds - I'm down a couple pounds from the beginning of the month. This morning I was down to 200.6.

Work:
* Finish reading “Managing Humans” book by the guy who writes Rands In Repose - I had started reading this book last month and got a couple chapters in. So far it's been pretty enjoyable and has some good points. 

Side projects:
* Work on creating something every day at least 10 minutes (blog, writing, programming, websites, anything really) - I've got 100% on this one so far, although some days I don't really accomplish a lot. That is one of my big challenges - with a busy work schedule and kids that want to spend time with their daddy, sometimes I don't feel like I'm getting anything done. In the last week, I decided to prototype an app to see how I'm doing eating Paleo. I got as far as installing the latest version of Rails and setting up a couple scaffolds. Even that is much better than doing nothing because I'm "too busy."

Finances:
* Read “Your Money or Your Life” book - when cuddling my younger daughter trying to get her to sleep, I have been reading this on my Kindle. I've made it through the first five chapters. The next one is "The American Dream - On a Shoestring" which I'm interested to see what the authors have to say.

The Magic Word

Lately I have learned at work there is a magic word that is really hard to say and I don't use it often enough. It's not the words you'd think - "Please" or "Thank you" or even "I'm sorry." Those words we are taught since a young age - the words and when and where to use them drilled into our skulls to the point that I think everyone knows to use them (even the ones that don't).

I'm thinking of a different word even harder to say for someone who loves to help people. That word?

NO

There's the point where things are just too busy to accomplish everything that you want to do. So you must say "No" to some things. This is going to either be by choice - you prioritize and intelligently pick and chose what needs to get done.

Or it could be more of by default. You try to do everything and just end up running out of time for some things. Who knows what gets done under this second system? It could be what is easiest, what is most fun, what people have yelled at you most to get it done, or just about anything.

I have also realized that I also need to remember this lesson at home, which tends to be a little harder to do.

So what gets done first? Whatever needs to be done to keep major problems from happening - paying bills, keeping the car repaired, etc. Next - whatever keeps making life better and better. Spending time with the kids and wife, learning new things, keeping in touch with friends, etc. Anything outside of those two things will need to fit into whatever time is left.

Gazingus pens are my Gazingus Pins

While reading the book "Your Money Or Your Life" I've run into a couple ideas that really hit me. I'll save my review of the book for later, but I'd like to share one idea from the book at this point.

The authors call this idea the "Gazingus Pin." I wish I knew where they came up with the term, but the idea is this: if you go to a store and there's some item that you buy without thinking even though you get no enjoyment from that particular item, that is your Gazingus Pin.

Examples they give in the book is someone who buys a new pair of shoes every month or upgrades to the latest cell phone even though their old one works fine and the new one has no new features they will actually be using.

I realized I have a few Gazingus Pins.

1. Gazingus pens, I mean fountain pens. Really any kind of nice pen. I almost bought some Sharpie retractible pens at Staples the other day even though I am just fine with my fountain pens, Fisher Space pen, and Pilot G2 pens.
2. Office supplies to help me get organized - planners, calendars, folders, index cards, etc. I've pretty much settled on using a combo of Levenger Circa and Staples ARC systems so I am mostly down to just spending money on the refills I need.
3. Apps - being a developer and always on the lookout for a better way to do things in particular to be organized, I will jump on an app that is on sale that does something I want to do. I am particularly bad about buying note taking or todo list apps. I used to buy a bunch of budgeting apps but have settled down on that as there are a couple that I really enjoy using.
4. Ebooks - I recently bought a Kindle Paperwhite intending that would help me do more reading. It has, but now I also tend to hit Amazon and buy any book I really want to read that our local library doesn't carry.
5. Caffeinated beverages - I am not sure if this counts or not, but I'll buy pop or if I'm really tired, energy drinks without thinking about how much I'm spending.

So what is YOUR Gazingus Pin?

April 2013 Goals

I've decided to start blogging again and keep track of my goals and progress on them publicly. So here goes nothing... My list of goals for this month:


Health:
* Work out every day at least 10 minutes
* Eat 80% paleo diet
* Get down to 195 pounds


Work:
* Finish reading “Managing Humans” book by the guy who writes Rands In Repose


Side projects:
* Work on creating something every day at least 10 minutes (blog, writing, programming, websites, anything really)


Finances:
* Read “Your Money or Your Life” book

Thinking Out Loud On Paper

Last night I realized that some people "think out loud" that is to really figure out an idea or concept they have to say it out loud to figure out how things all fit together.

I'm not one of these people. For me "thinking out loud" is putting something down on paper. Or typing it up. Either way seems to work. I'll do this at work all the time - when trying to explain a particularly complicated concept to a coworker, I'll reach for a dry erase marker and whiteboard nearly every time.

Drawing something out or writing it down makes it apparent how all the pieces fit together.

I need to get back to journaling & writing. I'll post online as I come up with stuff worth sharing. I'm not expecting to have a set schedule for posting, but we'll see where this goes.

Your Planner is With You - Iterating Organization

The Big Blue Brick

Back when I had just graduated college, I realized I was more or less hopelessly disorganized. I found this out when I compared my organization (none) to a friend who had EVERYTHING in a Franklin planner. I thought I was extremely busy, so I bought the "Monarch" size which is 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper size and I made sure I got a big enough one that I had room to write a page a day. This was great at conferences and meetings because I had huge amounts of room to write.

Unfortunately at some conferences, the right page was usually laying on the lap of the person next to me. I'm glad none of them punched me for having my planner across their lap. As you may guess, I often did not carry my planner. My friend reminded me that "Your planner is with you" or it's not really of any use to you.

I'm not sure ho much this thing weighed, but it felt like carrying a square paper bowling ball around with a blue cover.

Downsizing, slightly

I soon realized my friend had a "Classic" sized planner and seemed quite comfortable carrying it. I decided to switch to the same size. I suddenly felt a burden lifted from my shoulders. Classic size is like Monarch cut in half which was fantastic. It was something I can carry without feeling like my arm was going to be yanked off by my planner.

Enter Circa

I stuck with the Classic size a while, until I read something on the site Diyplanner.com that changed the world for me. There was a review of the Levenger Circa system, which essentially has plastic discs that hang on to the paper exactly the same distance apart so you can mix and match and swap out any paper into any bigger notebook - everything from business cards all the way up to full notebook page sizes.

Of course, I forgot where I came from and tried the biggest size first thinking at some point I could print out anything I want to carry with me and stick it in there. Once again, I hit the big paper brick problem and immediate swapped down a size to their version of the Classic planner.

Unbricking

Earlier this year (2012) I saw that I only carried my planner to work and back. While I'm out and about doing anything that is not work, I typically don't carry my planner with me. While thinking about that, I noticed Levenger has the "Compact" size calendars on sale for less than $5. The Compact size is slightly taller and not as wide as a 4x6 inch index cards. So I *HAD* to buy one. I used it for a couple weeks, enough to realize that I really like having a calendar that fits nicely in my back pocket. The problem is with the discs and one year's worth of weekly calendar pages, it is way too thick to fit comfortably in my back pocket.

So I went to Staples and grabbed a Day Minder 2012 calendar. It's about 1/2 the thickness of the Compact Levenger Circa calendar, not plastic rings. I tried putting it in my back pocket while driving around and pretty much didn't feel it at all. The only downside to this set up is I can't put in extra pages in my new calendar like I can in the Circa notebooks. However, I have noticed that I typically only have a line or two of writing in each day's calendar and then maybe two to three pages a month of notes.

My work stuff is nearly all electronic and at home, I'm generally blogging, messing with things on the computer, or playing with my kids. So it's nearly all electronic or things I don't really need to do much writing for.

So where does this leave me?

So here's my current set up:

I've got the aforementioned Day Minder 2012 calendar and Fisher Space pen I keep in my pocket. I also have a Levenger Smartphone Wallet in which I keep my iPod Touch. This wallet also has a place for index cards. I keep one index card in the front pocket of the Smartphone Wallet, three extra cards in the pouch, and then 5 or 10 index card Circa PDA notebook. Also in the wallet is a Lamy Agenda mechanical pencil. The plan is anything that needs to go on the calendar goes there, notes will go on the index cards, and any notes that need to be permanent will be entered into my computer.

I'm currently using Notebooks for iPhone and iPad to track all my notes and TaskPaper for my todo list. Notebooks really does allow me to keep track of everything but my todo list in the filesystem and then syncs to my iPod Touch and iPad via DropBox. The only current downside to this app is the todo list is implemented via .plist files which means you can only view or update them via the app.

TaskPaper keeps the todo list in plain text so would be available via anywhere you have it synced via DropBox.

Today I found out Notebooks is coming out with a Mac and Windows desktop version which means I would be able to use it to organize pretty much everything.