Managing money needs more from you than you think. You may not be familiar with the nuances of finance or investment. Yet, you need some understanding of finance to guide your savings and investments. A lot of time is spent trying to save money, cut corners and add to the existing pool of investments. Paying your taxes on time and filing your tax returns takes more time than expected.
You may want to step back and think about the time spent on the ‘finance’ bit in personal finance. You can do many things on the ‘personal’ front that can go a long way in helping you save and invest wisely.
Never stop learning
Investing in knowledge can have a long-term sustainable impact on your financial well-being. Your learning should never stop. It is always a good idea to add that new language skill. If you are a technology-oriented person, you can learn so many new programming languages. There are a variety of soft skills too. You could learn and teach about skills you know well. A lot of young people need training in etiquette in writing or speaking. You could sign up as a visiting faculty or work as a freelancer. There is learning everywhere. It does not matter if you are teaching or getting trained by an expert. Adding new skills is a way you could enhance your well-being.
Importance of time
There is a plethora of literature on the time value of money. You are told about investing your money in a disciplined manner for the long term. Your investment must beat the inflation demon to enjoy the benefit of wealth creation. However, your time is also equivalent to money. You cannot behave as if you are going to live forever. That makes time management a critical component of your personal life. The onus of that time management is entirely on you. How you utilize your time could eventually determine your financial
future too.
Famous film and documentary maker Satyajit Ray made 36 feature films. Besides directing movies, he wrote screenplays, composed music, did calligraphy and created storyboards with illustrations. He wrote books and articles for periodicals and journals. His creative output was astounding in an era when technology was a challenge.
If you look at modern film production studios, they are stuffed with supercomputers that can do multiple tasks simultaneously. Even then, modern-day filmmakers are barely so productive. It is clear from the body of work Satyajit Ray produced that he was good at all his creative skills and a master of time management. Without efficient time management, achieving so much would be near impossible.
Whether you like it or not, we all live within a time limit. Treating time as a currency can make you productive. There are several books on ‘time management’ if you look up the internet. In a 2018 book, author and time management expert Laura Vanderkam highlights the importance of keeping a log of the time spent.
Companies want you to maintain timesheets of your work during office hours to track productivity. You do the same thing at home. The flip side of doing so is that you may discover many unpleasant things about yourself. By doing so, the author discovered that she spent 327 hours a year reading meaningless magazines. Knowledge of that allowed her to use her time productively. But that should not deter you from course correction.
With modern personal gadgets, you can increase your productivity multi-fold. A smartphone today is as powerful as a supercomputer 20 years ago. Multitasking may not come naturally to all of us. However, with these gadgets, you can increase your productivity so that it could lead to a higher income. You try to manage your expenditure, taxes, and investments. It may be a good idea to put yourself in to increase your income so that managing the other three can get more superficial.
Investment should beat inflation
There is a plethora of literature on the time value of money. You are told about investing money in a disciplined manner for the long term. Your investment must beat the inflation demon to enjoy the benefit of wealth creation.However, your time is also equivalent to money.
Rajas Kelkar
(The author is editor-in-chief at www.moneyminute.in)