Time, this is the only asset which everybody in the world have and is distributed equally i.e. 24 hours in a day. No matter how you spend your it, you will get the next set of 24 hours the next day. You can spend time wasting it or spending it constructively.

The essential condition comes along with this asset is that you have to spend it. You cannot accumulate it, store it or gain any kind of appreciation on it. But this asset has a peculiar characteristics, this particular asset can let you accumulate other assets if you spend it wisely.

Setting financial goals making resolutions for the next year are the part of goal setting. You can achieve these goals by working for them. The underlying assumption for this is that you will work hard, change your behavior to finally achieve these goals. The important thing knows is you can’t achieve your set goals if you don’t stick to a time schedule. Even if you achieve the goals without a schedule you cannot expand/enhance your goals in the future.

I just want to set my time straight for a single day. Practice the same for a few days and then make it a habit. Improve upon the habit thereby improving my life. To put this into effect I need to check the time that I spend in my available 24 hours. I was observing myself over the past few days and how I spend my time.

My typical day

Getting up at 8:00 in the morning getting ready for my job till 9 leaving for the office it takes 35 min to reach my office. This includes the breakfast time of 20-25 min. Spending time doing work for 8-9 hours and again back at home at nearly 8:00 in the evening.

So my job is nearly 12 hours daily including the travel time. In the evening I watch TV for 1-1.5 hours and then prepare my dinner this takes my 2 hours. After having my dinner I surf the net, read blogs, write one or two and then sleep.

Broadly this is my daily routine. On weekends I meet some of my friends, read books and do some weekly chores like washing clothes, dusting my house, watch an occasional movie, etc.

This is a haphazard way of spending time simply because I have no goals for my time as I have with my money.

Setting my time straight

I sleep for eight hours; I am planning to reduce it to 6 hours. I have read a 6 hours sleep is a healthy sleep.

I am moving over to Hyderabad. There I’ll have my residence near my office that would save me nearly one hour a day spent for traveling.

I can have a cook as Hyderabad is relatively inexpensive compared to Bangalore, alternatively I can increase my cooking speed and complete my dinner in one hour, this would save me nearly one hour of time.

These are tentative figures that I am setting for me for now. This would bring some urgency in me, I would start respecting time. The tangible advantage that I’ll be having is earning a full four hours a day. This I can distribute for my daily exercise, reading and focusing on my other priorities.

The point I want to make through this post is that most of the people set their goals, financial goals, etc. but they never do consider the time in their goals except the deadline (a particular time) they put for their goal. But to me I have realized that time is a process which can be worked upon to have it more me. Some improvement in habits it will take to build a corpus of some hours daily.

Adding to my previous post of Year End Review I have decided to put down my resolutions for the next year. As I mentioned in my previous post, the following shall be my priority resolutions.

1. Purchase only when I can afford it and not on credit.
2. Have all the necessary insurance
3. Help friends but not with money, no monetary support to friends to get them out of bad situations.
4. No high price gifts for any occasions.

A careful thought and I came up with manageable resolutions. I say manageable because it’s a saying that resolutions are meant to be broken. Now I would not want to do that knowing the fact that that this will put me huge mental stress. I and as a matter of fact every one in the world can afford to miss upon their plans as it would surely put you way behind your competition (this includes competition with yourself too).

The other reason to have resolutions is, I found that my money didn’t work as I expected primarily a well thought out plan was not there. So now is the time to have certain guidelines to avoid mistakes that I have already made this year.

I have cooked some more resolutions for the next year.

To have an emergency account

I should set up an emergency account with at least Rs. 30,000 in it. Recent accident, unscheduled bike repairs and unexpected circumstances have provided sufficient grounds for me to have an emergency account.

I will plan my taxes from the start of the financial year 2008

This year I didn’t pay attention to plan my taxes. So I expect huge cuts this year form my salary. Next year I’ll not repeat the same mistake. I’ll fund my 80c investments (section 80c lists investment avenues for tax breaks in Indian income tax act) limits to the full to have maximum advantage. These avenues are primarily low return investments including mutual funds.

Invest only in direct equities

The disadvantage with investing in funds is that you do not have control of timing of the purhase (if it is an automatic/electronic clearing from your account) also it has lower returns as compared to direct equities.

Check on credit card spending

This year’s experiences of card spending have taught me a lot. Today I am out of my credit card debt, but now is the time that I will not make the same mistake again. Even if I spend with my credit card I would never roll-over my debt.

Do not cater to sales call on phone

This year I took my health insurance cover over the phone. I would rather say that the insurance was sold to me and I never realized whether I require it or not. I never planned for any insurance and got stuck with the premium payments that too on my credit card. Next year I’ll plan all my insurance needs and then purchase it.

Financial planning and Time planning

I have been concentrating my efforts on financial planning (primarily debt reduction) that I would continue to do but I have never paid any attention to my time planning. I would identify where I spend my time and then would make conscious efforts to reduce time wastage.

Improving my career skills

The most important resolution is that I would strive to improve my career/professional skills. Improve upon my resume as my career is the sole source of income to me. I have to improve my financial modeling skills.

These resolutions are surely manageable and more importantly very simple. If I stick to these resolutions I would surely be improving my networth and my overall standard of living by the next year end.

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