TIME AND MONEY MATTERS
You can’t use an algorithm to determine your mission in life. You have to look deep inside and decide what you stand for, what you value, and how you operate in the world.
As Brian Selznick wrote in The Invention of Hugo Cabret:
“I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”
A long time ago, I did some work with Michael Meade and others around the concept of “inner giftedness”, which is the idea that each of us have a reason for being here. Michael was doing work with prison inmates that led him to conclude that repressing our inner gifts led to deep, debilitating turmoil. I found this to be true in my own work with men in prison.
And so, although we often think of mission, vision, and values as corporate ideals, we can adapt these concepts to our personal lives. Great thinkers like Steven Covey recommend that we each determine a personal mission statement. In fact, in our work with corporations and not-for-profits, Katie and I determined that meaningful change in the organization actually happens at the personal level
Do you have a personal mission statement? Do you have a vision for your life? How about stated values? What are the intangible aspects of life that you dwell upon and upon which you base your life decisions? Really, you can’t even begin to establish meaningful goals until you understand what it is that you value.
One way to figure out what you value most in life is to look closely and non-judgmentally at how you spend your time and your money.
Time and Money Matters
My wife and I are both self-employed and like most people, time is our most limited and valuable resource. We track our billable hours carefully, and even if we are working on a deliverable contract, where we are paid by outcome rather than by hour, we track our time in order to make sure we are being efficient and working on our highest-value projects. For instance, if I am contracted to provide a script or manuscript for a fixed fee, I track my hours to be able to assess my hourly rate. I have a target minimum that I am willing to accept.
What all this leads to is that several years ago I decided to start tracking all of my time, just to see how I spent it. We already did this with our money, and since time is the scarcest of all resources, it made sense to budget it. We’d abandoned traditional financial budgeting in favor of cash flow forecasting, which basically means we track our actual expenditures every month by category and then project forward for six to twelve months based on actual. One of the things that became obvious to us was that we were going over budget every month on dining out and entertainment, so when we created the cash flow forecast, instead of setting a target we couldn’t meet, we based future estimates on past performance by month. Also, the busier we were, the more we dined out. It was essentially a cost of doing more business.
What do you really value?
This cash forecasting also showed us what we valued. Travel, dining, and entertainment are things we value and that is apparent in our spending habits. Instead of fighting it, we embraced it and just planned for it. Skiing, travel, movie and date night, and all of the other ways we play, feed our souls and make us more effective at home and at work. We also value a comfortable home and conveniences, and our cash flow forecast reflects that. We only have one car, but two motorcycles and all the gear that goes with them.
How you spend your money can illuminate some of your values, but tracking your time will show more. If you have done some mission, vision, value work before, either for your business or your personal life, you may have a list of values, such as community, financial security, education, social justice, and more. Each person has a unique list. However, you may find as you track your time, your life may not reflect those values.
For instance, I value being active and physically fit, but I spend very little of my productive time exercising. I used to value social entrepreneurism, but I had to admit, after cancer, that I just don’t have time or energy to build another charter school or teach college classes in prison. It doesn’t mean that’s not a value, it’s just that it’s dropped lower on my list than it used to be. I simply don’t embody that value anymore. I still support those endeavors, philosophically, but if someone came to me today and asked me to volunteer to consult on creating a social justice program like that, I would have to politely say, “No.” It’s just part of my reality. In fact, Rest and Recover is one of my highest priorities now. Cancer severely cut back on my energy. My highest values now are to take care of my family and to help other people accomplish their goals. In order to do that, I also have to spend time on my physical and mental health, and it’s surprising how much of my limited resources those two things consume.
Contact me and I’ll be happy to send you a template version of the cash tracking spreadsheet we use. I can send you Excel or GoogleDoc, or a Mac sheet if you use that. For time tracking, I just used a simple app before I switched to calendaring everything for billing purposes (and by extension, I just tracked EVERYTHING on my calendar as I did it or after I was done, but I was meticulous about it and kept it up for several months until I had a really good picture of my life). I can also send you a template of the simple TODO list I use if you want it
Over the past few years, I’ve not tracked all my time as carefully, but I did notice something interesting about my TODO list. I have always classified activities by client and by categories such as “financial” (updating budget/forecast, investing, etc.) and “misc” (getting the oil changed, fixing the screen door, etc.) and “family” and whatever other categories made sense, including one called GOALS that encompassed anything that was directly related to writing fiction and non-fiction that related to my overall goal of being a full-time, prolific, best-selling author (so it didn’t include textbooks, courses, and other trade-nonfiction projects). Today, that column in my TODO list spreadsheet is almost all GOALS. That’s been a significant but gradual shift, and I think it’s happened for two reasons: (1) I claimed it and was aware of it, and (2) I am supported because I share it with the people who matter (Katie) and she supports me and believes in me. That’s HUGE.
As I simplified and focused my life and my efforts, I briefly stopped using my TODO list, but I recently started using it again because trying to keep track of a myriad of tasks that don’t calendar well (like fixing that damn screen door) takes up mental energy that I don’t need to spend. Even exercise for me doesn’t calendar well because I don’t know when I’m going to have energy for that. However, if it’s on my todo list, it’s far more likely to get done because I’m going to be looking at it and I hate having unchecked boxes at the end of the day. (I move them to the next day or assess how important they are in reality.) Also, for fans of Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I classify all items on my TODO list by his Quadrants, but only QI (Urgent and Important) and QII (Not-urgent and Important). I don’t put anything on my list that is in the second tier (not-important). But to figure out what is important and what is not-important, you have to have some clear idea of your mission, vision, and values.
courtesy of Franklin-Covey
For instance, I value family time, so playing online video games via Zoom with the kids who are scattered across the country fits within my values, even though I am the anti-video game grump of the family. Also, watching a movie with Katie at the end of the day or in the backyard with the neighbors fits in my grand scheme, since I can’t work all the time.
In addition to tracking time and money to discern what you really value, you have to look beyond the numbers. Things like social justice, education, and world peace don’t always show up in the time and money matters spreadsheets (or apps, or whatever you use to accurately and completely track your finances and your energy). However, say you claim to value activism and a world that accepts all people, but you spend your time watching TV and playing video games. This tells you what might be a hard truth about yourself. It gives you a clear picture of what you REALLY value.
Accept or reject?
Once you disclose your real values to yourself, you can either accept them and redefine the way you see yourself, or you can make changes to the way you spend your time and money to more closely align with your values. I had to come to task with the fact that I place family high on my values list, but I spent A LOT of time working, and that I also value time alone. It’s not that these values are in conflict, or even that they are mutually exclusive, it’s just that sometimes they create a bit of a paradox. I work hard because that’s my love language—taking care of the family financially. I love spending time with Katie, but as those two things are high on my list, they take up most of my time and energy. The rest of my family might report to you that spending time with family is NOT high on my list of values. That’s the hard pill to swallow. Do I change, or do I accept and, being honest with myself, restate the values by which I live my life?
You are the only person who can answer that, and remember that your top values can shift with time and circumstance. However, for most of us basic underlying values are the bedrock of our lives, not shifting sand. That’s why they are discovered, rather than adopted. For instance, it’s obvious to us both that Katie and I value independence, interdependence, autonomy, and entrepreneurism. We are a great team, we love working for ourselves, we are self-motivated and run our own businesses. We have proven this to ourselves over and over again to the point where we just accept it.
I heard Katie leading a webinar the other day talking about how tracking our activities and our spending could reveal to us what we really value, despite what we claim to value, and there was an audible inhaling of atmosphere. No one was actually offended, but it was hard for some to hear as they considered where they spent their time and money and compared that to a lofty list of ideals that they professed as part of the mission, vision, value process.
Facing the uncomfortable truth.
I actually love that moment of being suddenly faced with an uncomfortable truth. Those are moments of deep change, if we can latch on to them and hold that tension. Katie and I both grew up poor, and eating out was either for special occasions or frowned upon. However, we both value productivity and hard work, and we value those over home-cooked meals. Our compromise is pre-packaged meals delivered to our door, but often at the end of a long day we are even too worn out to make those work. We aren’t worn out as in disparaged or frustrated, and we certainly aren’t lazy. We just work hard because we love our jobs and we have to sometimes force ourselves to stop. So, eating out is okay. We love to support our local restaurants, and we do our best to eat healthy rather than fast. This is just a reality. Maybe at some point all that will change for us (not likely) but for now, as we accept and allow and appreciate that value, it clears space for higher-value activities.
Track your time. Track your spending and your income. Do those two things accurately, and then use that information to assess your values and to predict the future. You’ll find it’s really quite easy and it will change your life.