The Power of Time Budgeting

Becoming the Master of Your Minutes

In today’s highly-connected, “always-on” world, being busy has become the new normal. From sun-up to sun-down, we pack our schedules to the brim, multi-tasking and jumping from one meeting to the next, never fully in control of our days. Why are we so compelled to be busy 24/7 — even when we know it leads to burnout?

When I started my second year at HBS last month, I found it difficult to transition back to school. As someone who prefers routine, I struggled to operate in a relatively unstructured environment where much of my daily schedule (classes, events and meetings) seemed out of my control. I wasn’t running my day; my day was running me!

…so I conducted an experiment. Every morning, I spent 10 minutes logging how I spent each hour of the previous day in a spreadsheet. My goal was simple: to see how I was actually spending my time, in case there were any obvious optimizations. To my surprise, the data gave me way more information than I asked for:

• I was spending hours each day browsing social media, especially before bed. While everyone needs time to unwind, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and TikTok was not the best way to spend my downtime.

• Things that I believed were a priority (such as exercising and writing) were getting crowded out by tasks that were more urgent, but less important (such as running errands or answering emails).

• I’m really bad at saying “no” — especially if it’s an invitation to an activity that others are doing, such as a group dinner or party. Business school has no shortage of social activities… and the FOMO is real.

When I reflected on why I felt stressed out, the answer was immediately clear. I wasn’t making enough time for the things that mattered to me, and I wasn’t productive when the time finally came around.

This article provides a framework for optimizing the 168 hours in your week. No, you don’t have to wake up at 4 AM, run 10 miles, journal and meditate before you commute to your day job. All you need is a few minutes each day, a spreadsheet (template provided below) and a willingness to experiment and learn what works and doesn’t work for you.

Let’s get to it!

💸 How Time is Money… and Isn’t

We’ve all heard that “time is money.” But is that really true? And if so, why don’t we treat our time the way we treat our money?

Like money, time can be budgeted and spent. When we regularly spend time on an activity (such as exercising or studying for an exam), we are “investing” it to produce a future outcome, such as improved physical health or subject mastery.

Unlike money, everyone — even Beyoncé — has 24 hours in a day. Although you can always make more money, you can’t make more time. In practice, this means that for every new activity you add to your plate, (1) something else must come off or (2) one or both activities will suffer in quality. Simply put, it’s harder to half-ass two things than whole-ass one thing.

In a perfect world, we would invest our resources (time, talents and energy) proportionally to our priorities. But if the prevalence of procrastination is any indicator, we don’t always act rationally. When we put off things that we claim matter to us (e.g. health, hobbies) we are forced to grapple with a disconnect between our aspirational selves and our actual selves. Are we underinvesting time in our priorities, or are they not really priorities at all?

🧭 Step 0: Determine Your Priorities

Most people know exactly what they want when it comes to their career or education: graduate, land the dream job, get promoted. But when it comes to family, community and self, these priorities rarely make the list. Why is that?

According to Clayton M. Christensen, overachievers are prone to overinvest in activities that produce the most tangible and immediate results. After all, it’s easier to measure a pay raise than an improvement in one’s relationship with their family. However, such a strategy can lead to burnout and isolation — even if the “strategy” was unconsciously adopted.

Start by outlining your priorities in the three core areas of professional, personal, and relationships. Each area may have a number of sub-priorities, for example:

• Professional: academics, career or side projects

• Personal: physical health, mental health, hobbies and extracurriculars

• Relationships: family, friends and the broader community

Every activity you pursue should support at least one sub-priority, including self-care (mental health). Resist the temptation to add multiple goals per sub-priority. As economist Michael Porter said, “the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

💰 Step 1: Budget Your Time

Download my free time-budgeting template HERE and follow the instructions on the ‘Instruction’ tab. Don’t sweat too much about the targets; you can always adjust them later. For example:

As you go through this exercise, keep the following things in mind:

• In chemistry, gases expand to fill whatever container they’re in. Similarly, work tends to fill whatever time you set aside to complete it. While some tasks require more time than others, consider allocating fewer hours to activities that can easily be outsourced or done more productively.

• Don’t forget to schedule non-work activities! Everyone needs down-time — and errands like commuting, cooking and cleaning take time too. Provide enough buffer so that you can get everything done without killing yourself. For example, my R&R comes from spending time with my fiancé, family and close friends. Don’t skimp on what brings you joy and rejuvenation!

📊 Step 2: Allocate Your Time

Next, allocate your activities for the upcoming week on your calendar — a technique called time-blocking. If you work or attend school, most of your week is already determined through meetings, commute or classes. How you fill the gaps, however, is completely up to you.

Time blocking is effective because it forces you not only to define what you want to do, but also when and where you’ll get it done. It also impels you to tackle one task at a time, allowing you to focus on whatever task is in front of you (“deep work”). I suggest using a different color or separate calendar to distinguish between classes/meetings, independent study/work time and leisure time. Larger activities should be broken down into smaller tasks that are given their own time blocks.

Are there certain activities that are better at certain times of the day or week? For me, the answer is yes.

For example, I’ve learned that I do my best creative work (writing, coding, working on my startup, etc.) on the weekends, when I have long periods of time and few distractions. Once I start, I’m totally immersed — in fact, it’s hard for me to get out of “the zone” once I’m in it. Frequent context-switching kills momentum!

On the flip side, I’ve found that the best time to complete homework, answer emails or do chores is in the morning, 30 minutes before class (sorry, professors!)

Warning: when time-blocking, activities that are important but not urgent (exercising, meditation etc.) are usually first on the chopping block when something important but more urgent pops up. If this happens, remember that consistency is the key to forming good habits. For example, even if you only exercise for 5 minutes per day for a month, you’ll be in a better position than someone who only “binge exercises” once a month for two hours.

📈 Step 3: Track Your Time

Set aside 10 minutes each morning to log your hours from the previous day in the ‘Daily’ tab of your time budgeting spreadsheet. I usually do this while I have my morning cup of coffee, as it helps me take stock of what I accomplished the day before and recalibrate (if necessary) for the day ahead. On Sundays, I sum the daily totals on the ‘Weekly’ tab to see how all 168 hours were spent the previous week.

In the ironic event that you don’t have time to fill out your timelog one morning, no sweat; fill it out the next morning. The goal is not to bring a stopwatch everywhere you go, but to record reasonably accurate estimates for core activities.

🔁 Step 4: Reflect (and Repeat Steps 1-3)

After 4 weeks, my weekly timelog looks like this:

…and when I compare my average weekly actuals vs. targets, I get this:

With time budgeting, there is no beating around the bush: during my first month back at business school, I overinvested in social and extracurricular activities and underinvested in professional activities. Thankfully, each week is a clean slate — and I can already see week-over-week improvements in how I’m spending my time.

Although I haven’t yet reached my aspirational self, I now know exactly what trade-offs I need to make to ensure each week is better than the last. If you have any other time management tips to share, please leave them in the comments below!

Additional Reading

• How Will You Measure Your Life? - Clayton M. Christensen

• Atomic Habits - James Clear