Have you heard the expression “Pay yourself first“? It’s a simple and brilliant financial philosophy.
I was first exposed to it in The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, a great book to read when you first begin looking at your financial life in a serious way. In a nutshell, the principle states that when you get paid, no matter what your financial situation is, the first thing you do is put a portion of it into a form of savings, hence “pay yourself first”.
Image by Phoxie Photo
The reason for this approach is because many times we think along the lines of “let me pay my bills, and buy groceries, and get through the week and whatever is left over I will save”, but come Friday we are anxiously waiting to cash our paycheck because we’ve spent it all and saved nothing, yet again. We don’t make any progress. Paying yourself first means that no matter what happens with the rest of the week, you are making financial progress.
Time Is Money – Time Is Energy
Your time is arguably more important than your finances. Time is money, they say, and it’s the one thing you can’t create more of. All you can do is learn to use it more efficiently. Paying yourself first in minutes and hours is imperative to accomplishing anything important to you. This is a stance I have just recently taken in my own life.
A couple months ago I took a voluntary demotion from a good management job because as I’ve grown and changed in the past few years, this job has become an ill fit, and, to be dramatic, sucked my very soul out. I was coming home too mentally tired and stressed to have any motivation to work on building a business, my real ambition, or to help keep our house clean on a regular basis, or cook healthy meals with lots of leftovers for work the next day. I spent my time watching TV on hulu.com, or reading fiction book after book. I escaped. It was miserable spending my day plugged into a job that I hated and coming home to unplug from my life just to be able to deal with it.
I stepped down from a management position to become a regular customer service associate and took a decent pay-cut- about a third of my income. It was amazing. I spent the next several weeks coming home from work, still having energy to do things I wanted to do. I had the energy to research information and skills that I need to start a business. I had the energy to make our home life more productive, like building a laundry center to organize all our baskets, complete with drying racks for clothes that need to dry flat.
I had the energy. The problem I started running into was that I didn’t have the time. Between getting ready, driving time to work, lunch, and driving time back home, an 8 hour work day became 11 hours easy. By the time I got home, most of the day had passed and I had done nothing to further my goals. I would want to spend time with my wife, eat dinner, run some errands, tidy up a little, and then there just wasn’t enough time left over, or energy by this point, to work on the projects that were important to me. If I worked a closing shift, I would sleep late, and spend most of my time getting ready for work and doing a few chores. By the time I got home I would spend time with my wife, keeping us awake until 1 or 2 AM and then sleeping late again the next day.
Make A Timely Deposit
On a particular day, a few weeks after stepping down from management, I got up and went to work feeling good and energetic, as I had been since then. I started off the day doing quality work, being efficient at my job and that’s when it dawned on me- I have time at the beginning of every day to put the best of myself into something, and I have been putting it into the job that I don’t want to keep long-term. I needed to shift my best energy and time into my top priorities in life.
I started getting up extra early, taking some time to say a prayer of thanks to set a tone of joy and abundance for the day, and then sitting down to work on writing blogs and learn how to build a site- all before I got dressed or ate breakfast. Some days I go to work at 6 AM, which meant I had to take my shower, program the coffee maker, lay out my clothes, and pack my lunch the night before to free up time in the morning. I also started making sausage and egg casseroles so I would have a breakfast I could just warm up in the microwave. These changes cut down everything I need to do to be ready for work to 20-25 minutes, including eating breakfast. Take out another 20 minutes of driving time and that still gives me over an hour of highly productive work on the goals that matter most to me before I even start my day. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s an hour more than I used to.
Here’s a few tips to implement this idea effectively:
- Don’t allow interruptions. Turn off the phone, shut yourself away, sign off of your chat tool and go. Don’t log on to Facebook or check your email until your dedicated work time is over or the task is complete. The very beginning of your day is a much easier time to eliminate distractions. 1 solid hour of uninterrupted work is gold.
- Tidy up your work area the night before so it’s not a distraction, even subconsciously. Have you ever noticed a low level of agitation, not entirely discernible, because your house was a mess? You may not have noticed it until you actually cleaned up and felt a sense of relief and lightness. This is important in your home and your workspace. Keep it neat.
- Set up your project in advance. I like to check things like my email and college fantasy football picks at night. It’s an easy addition to that routine to close everything on the computer except for what I am going to work on. If you want to work on your finances, pull up your bank’s website and your finance spreadsheet. If you’re going to write a blog, pull up a new entry, name it or type a few words about the idea for the content to get you started in the morning and leave it ready to go. If you want to set up a filing cabinet for your piles of random “important” papers, plug in the paper shredder, and grab a sharpie to label your folders. Taking care of all the set-up in advance makes a daunting task feel smaller. It takes away that moment of hesitation when you sit down to a project and have no idea where to start, which only makes you feel like you can’t do it.
- Automate. If you have to have a cup of coffee to function, buy a coffee maker with a timer. Set it to turn on 5 minutes before you wake up and as you zombie walk to the kitchen enjoy that wonderful aroma. How’s that for a motivating wake up? Set out your mug, sugar, and spoon (I wouldn’t recommend setting out the milk) so you can enjoy your cuppa that much sooner and not get distracted with all the thoughts that can run through your head in the minute or so it takes to doctor a cup of joe.
It Pays Dividends
I got out of the swing of this routine last week when I stayed up late several nights in a row and found myself being tired after work, letting my projects go undone, worrying unproductively about finances and doubting myself in regards to my goals. Thankfully Do You Do Your Most Important Work First, a blog on Unclutterer, reminded me how smoothly things were going when I was following this principle, motivating me to re-instate the plan.
But aren’t you exhausted getting up that early? Especially with your crazy work schedule?
Image provided by Phoxie Photo
No. I feel good and energized in the morning, because I was productive. Between that accomplishment-high, and my morning prayer of thanks, I am buzzing for most of the day. I am not easily drained by negative circumstances or people. I am not stressed by what I haven’t done. I am not feeling overwhelmed by my goals. It frees up enormous energy. I will admit, it doesn’t entirely make up for the lack of a good night’s sleep, but it’s close, and I wasn’t getting a good night’s sleep before anyway. I’m getting up earlier, but getting about the same amount of hours as I was before because I am more ready and willing to go to bed earlier. I am often in bed before midnight these days, instead of 1 or 2am. Sometimes, I will take a 30-45 minute nap, which can give me a boost, if needed. It isn’t the ideal situation but helps to make the transition.
Start Spending
*Update: I wrote this entry on November 6th, 2009 during my pre-writing period for this blog. Since then, I have had success using the Law of Attraction to make this very change. I accepted a newly-created position at my work on December 17, 2009 which has me working 9-6pm. This gives me a 2-3 hours every morning to pay myself first by putting my best work of the day into my blog. I will be writing an in depth post about my experience using the Law of Attraction in the next few weeks. Until then, know that my dedication to prioritizing my blog over my job was a major component in this success story.
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Thanks,
Carlos
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EXCELLENT points, Carlos. I’m really glad that you are trying to help others to see the benefits of giving YOURSELF time. You know, this reminds me of a story from college. It was my senior year, and I had comepleted all of my requirements. I was coasting through the semester while writing my thesis… and I was taking classes (SERIOUSLY) like weaving. I did want to get this one religion class in, which was scheduled at 8am. In four years at college, I’d NEVER had an 8am class… I rolled out of bed every day at 7:55 am and attended the class in my pj’s. THEN I’d go back to my dorm room, get ready for a workout, hit the gym and then shower. My professor pulled me asside after class and told me that I wasn’t doing well in her course. She said that said that she knew I was just there to “take a class” and didn’t need the grade, but she asked me why I chose HER class instead of something else. “I’m interested in this material”, I said. She replied “then why are you coming to class so unprepared to absorb it?”. Valid point. She suggested that I wake up AT LEAST an hour before class, take a shower and do my makeup and maybe even get something to eat. I grumbled, so she told me she wouldn’t pass me unless I did it.
Realizing that my professor was trying to help, not irritate me, I started to do it. Very grudgingly so for the first couple of days, but after day 3 or 4, I found that I was energized. I was waking up HAPPY, and was maintaining that feeling through my day. I even found time before my class to hit the gym and read the news online… I’ve gotta tell ya, it didn’t FEEL like I was adding hours to my day, but I REALLY was. It wasn’t miserable at all like I thought it would be, and I wound up being a much happier and more productive student.
SO- if anyone is reading this… Carlos is giving you some really phenominal advice. Take it, even though he cannot fail you if you don;t
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Thanks Tessie!
That’s exactly me. I found, some time ago, that I hated getting up and rushing to get ready for work. I started getting up a little extra early so I could have a more relaxing morning that included reading whatever fiction book I was enjoying at the time. I loved it so much more. Not to mention, it gave me a bit of a buffer in case I did wake up late.
another thought, though, is that some people just aren’t morning people, and maybe “paying yourself first” for them means another time of the day. Julie tends to be a night owl when it comes to work. We’ve kicked around the idea before of her working on whatever projects she has going at night. We don’t like it much because it makes for an even wackier schedule than we’ve had, but it does seem to be when she’s at her best. I guess that’s the important part. Recognizing what time of the day you’re at your best and dedicating that to what matters most: spending time with kids, writing a book, starting a business, wood carving, whatever.
I’m glad to see you’ve been putting regular effort into your blog. It’s been motivating to see someone else starting out a little ahead of me.
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