Time Blocking Can Improve Your Financial Health

There are many ways in which modern society encourages both instant gratification and major multitasking.

Both the benefits and disadvantages of multitasking have been explored in many ways. I tend to believe that it depends on each person, but one fact is clear: There never seems to be enough hours in the day to get everything done!

We have to be honest with ourselves whether or not we are properly prioritizing our time. It's very easy to assume you are doing what you need to do and in the most efficient order, but have you ever considered typing out your routine in Excel and quantifying the hours you are actually dedicating to what you typically do on a daily basis? I created an example using the Google sheets “Schedule” template which shows a half hour by half hour daily schedule.

This sounds meticulous, but it could be very surprising to see at high level how you are really spending your time. It's interesting to see that you're possibly not setting proper boundaries with the time you are giving other people vs time you should be dedicating for your own self-improvement. 30 minutes to 1 hour of scrolling through social media or binge-watching can be replaced with time dedicated to researching and/or executing on all the initiatives you've been telling yourself you need to do. The yellow time slots are free time that is not meal-times, commute times, work or sleep. An hour and a half of time is left over that should be dedicated to initiatives for financial & mental wellness. I think we all know how easily that time can be taken over by social media.

According to Statista, the average time a person spends on social media is 2 hours and 23 minutes. This is 2024 data. If there are 24 hours in a day, after taking out 8 hours for sleep and 8 hours for work, that leaves 8 hours. You'll likely spend at least 3 of those 8 hours eating and/or preparing food to eat. That leaves 5 hours. If the average person spends 2 hours and 30 mins on social media, that leaves 2 hours and 30 mins. I didn't even add in any sort of commute time to work. With that time in mind and reading that the average commute time is about an hour each way, that leaves you with 30 minutes. When we look at it this way, social media can put us in seemingly a deficit of time when you have goals of focusing on financial and/or mental well-being.

Another useful tool for this is your phone calendar. Many of us have been introduced to Google Calendar in the workplace and some use it for personal use. Any calendar that comes with your phone can be used for personal time blocking.

This is how I use my Google calendar to really see at a high level how I spend my day:

Yes, even BREAKS and meals can be time blocked! So, with the goal of personal finance improvement, you can block off specific hours during each day or week where you are dedicating your time to a specific goal. It could be very general like 1 hour each week for "Personal Financial Improvement" or you can get more specific where you block out 30 mins to "Find Highest Savings Account APY & Sign Up!" or "Transfer 401K to Roth IRA Account".

If you use a general term "Personal Finance Improvement" vs getting very specific, when you happened to stumble upon something interesting that you would like to work on, sign up for and/or accomplish, you can go to that time block in your calendar and save those links in the notes section so they are handy when the dedicated time comes.

Time blocking is an awesome for productivity. Not only will it allow you to finally execute on goals you've been sitting on for a while, it will allow you to take a look back and easily see all you've accomplished!

Time is fleeting. Time blocking definitely gives one a sense of more control of their time which leads to less stress and anxiety. It becomes more obvious and logical as to why one shouldn't spend so much of their time on activities that won't help them long-term.

Time blocking should be realistic and flexible. The key is to make sure that you are not continually pressing SNOOZE on your calendar alarms and completely avoiding the tasks that you've committed yourself to completing. It's best to start with just a few tasks until it becomes routine and second nature.

Your Big Sis