Intentionality will help you be more productive. Doing things you schedule on purpose is very important to your productivity. Making a time budget or a financial budget for that matter shows some intentionality. Actually following it is what is more important. Being intentional does not only keep you on track, but will also save you time and money. Choosing to follow your schedule consistently and sticking to your schedule will allow you to save time because you won’t have to waste time deciding what to do. No matter if you keep an extremely detailed schedule minute to minute or a more general schedule, making a choice to focus on these things will end up saving time
You can save money as well with the same concept - first of all focusing your money on a budget, just like focusing your time will allow you to save more time. Being intentional with your money just like your time simultaneously is the ultimate goal. As you do so, you will save on both ends. Below are examples of how you can save time and money by being intentional
- Combining Trips. I mentioned this in my previous post, doing so will save time and money and overall it can add a lot. Remember just saving 5 minutes three times a week can add up to 12 hours, $25 a month is $300 a year.
- Working both hard and smart. Getting your job done more effectively will lead to good things. If you are salaried, you can lower the amount of unpaid overtime. if you are paid hourly, this doesn’t have an immediate benefit, but with both hourly and salaried, there will likely be a long-term benefit of increased pay for good work.
- Most efficient ways to shop. You can save both time and money by setting up systems on how you shop. Finding out where the best deals ahead of time and doing the research can save you a lot of money. Knowing where to find the best deals will save you time once you are familiar with the store and/or website. For those of you love to shop (I am not really one of them), remember this, saving money is only saving money if you need to buy what you are buying, otherwise, you are probably wasting money. This is the same concept with our time, saving time on something you don’t need to be doing anyway is probably just a waste of time anyway.
Money and Time have a lot of links together. That is why there is well known saying like “Time is Money.” The easiest way to quantify your time in a financial matter is take whatever your hourly rate is (or if salary divide annual salary by 2,080) and put a dollar amount to your time. Then you’ll see that Facebook, YouTube, any kind of TV just got more expensive. Of course this is not a literal financial transaction, but more of an opportunity cost concept. I will explore more of the relationship with time and money in future posts. Please let me know your thoughts.