I Applied YNAB Budgeting To My Time, And It’s Changed My Life

Have you ever thought of budgeting your time like money? Well, I did, and I have noticed that I am more productive, I avoid burning myself out, and I've been able to adapt to unexpected things that happen during my day without completely losing my day in the process. Most importantly, however, I feel a lot less stressed out about my schedule.

Not only has this allowed me to hold myself accountable to spend enough time on the initiatives that are important to me, it has also ensured that I don't overwork. It has proven to be effective at giving me the structure I need to make sure I both start, and stop when I should.

Time and time again, I have tried to "budget" my time by creating an agenda. This ideal idea of what my day should look like. I historically would create a special calendar that has all these different blocks of time that would be dedicated to different tasks. Things like "Deep Work", or "Sleep", or "Leisure" were on this calendar.

But every time I've tried this, it has failed miserably, because as the day progressed, something would distract me. A family member drops in to say hi, one of my kids need me, or maybe I just don't feel like doing anything in that moment. Regardless of what it was, something at some point would throw off the entire agenda, and it would all come crashing down.

I'm a long-time YNAB-er and have personally seen how giving "every dollar a job" changed my financial life. For those who aren't familiar, YNAB flips budgeting on its head, by having you budget the money you have not the money you will have later. You look at what you have now, and make a plan for how to spend it. Money goes into different categories (budgets), and once that budget is empty, that's it. No more money to spend. With this approach, I found that I was able to make more headway with my financial goals than any other method - and I have tried many.

What makes this method so effective is that it's adaptable. You set your budget, and put your money in the appropriate buckets, (hopefully) saving up for other initiatives that you want to do later in the year (vacation, bills, etc). And if something unexpected happens, you have money that's set aside that you can draw from. It gives you clarity on the consequences of your spending. No longer are you spending money from a single account, instead you're taking away money from your vacation fund. This clarity was effective in making me a lot more diligent about my spending because it allowed me to weigh-in on if I wanted to spend that money or not. Is it worth ordering this pizza if it means I have to take it from my vacation budget?

About 3 months ago, I realized that I'm treating my time exactly like how I used to treat my money - I was trying to budget the time before I had it, and like budgeting money before you have it, I was running into the same issues. As I drew this comparison, the idea came to me.

What if I budget my time like I treat my money?

What if instead of using a calendar with an agenda of hard start/stop times, I used a series of "buckets" that hold an allocated amount of time for different tasks throughout the day? By doing this, I effectively decouple the time I spend doing things from when I do them. This means that at 10AM I could be doing whatever I want to do, so long as that time is being allocated to a budget.

So I fired up Excel, and divided up a 24 hour day into different time budgets, and down to the minute, budgeted a 24 hour period, both for weekdays and weekends. This includes:

1. Personal Project Time
2. Day Job time
3. Leisure Time
4. Lunch
5. Shallow
6. Buffer
7. Workout Time
8. Sleep

I then downloaded one of my favorite apps on mobile - MultiTimer, and created a timer for every one of those budgeted items. Some timers use the Pomodoro method (such as day job time and personal project time), and others are divided in other ways, so that I ensure that I actually take enough breaks as-needed. The only thing I didn't add was sleep, because you really can't "start sleep" and "end sleep" when you want - your body just doesn't work like that, so I stick to a consistent bedtime and wakeup time, but pretty much everything else is fluid.

Now, when I wake up, I instantly start my buffer timer, get the sand out of my eyes, and work myself downstairs to start my day. From there, I'll switch into the relevant timer, and do that thing until that timer runs out. If throughout the day something happens and I have to switch timers, I simply pause the timer I'm on, and start the timer for whatever the other task is.

This allows me to still work within a routine, but there's some flexibility there - if my dad stops by for a visit at 10AM, I simply stop my work timer, start my buffer timer, and enjoy spending time with him. If I eat up all of my buffer, I can start taking away from my lunch, made well aware of the consequence of that action. If I have a networking meeting that I want to attend, I can take it from the buffer, lunch, or whatever timer it's related to.

I've even had days where I'm aware that it's going to be a perfect day to fly a kite. In the past, I would have never been able to go do something like that in the middle of the day because it would have been a nightmare to "schedule it in", but now, I can look at my timer, and say "hey, I've got enough time to do that, I just have to make sure my lunch is shorter than usual."

Well, I did, and I have noticed that I am more productive, I avoid burning myself out, and I've been able to adapt to unexpected things that happen during my day without completely losing my day in the process. Most importantly, however, I feel a lot less stressed out about my schedule.