The Bank with NO Deposit Facility

Imagine one day somebody came in to your life and gave you a debit card for a bank account with a positive balance. Now imagine you can never access the balance, never make a deposit, never be sure if it will be there tomorrow. How would you manage that account? Would you squander it all, in a rush of hedonistic pleasure, or stretch it out, making each day just a little easier?

The reality is that you, I, everyone, has just such an account. Have you worked out what it is I'm getting at yet?

Yes we all have an account like this, it comes into this world with us and is closed when we die. It is our account of time; time allocated for this existence. (No I'm not entering into life after death debate here!)

So what do we do to maximise the return on our bank account, do we have a chronological equivalent of a financial advisor? Someone who can help us maximise each days withdrawal, to get the most out of our non sustainable resource, including utilising our sustainable ones; such as money, to maximise the one we can't add to? If you like me, and I suspect most people have replied that of course we do not have such an advisor, then perhaps like me you should consider where you invest your bank of time, how you can achieve the best return, leverage the asset etc.

You probably have your own ideas already, but here are a few tips from my experiences, that I hope will help you to get the best out of your account:

Touch it once. Now this is a tough discipline. I challenge anyone to do this 100%, I just don't think it's posible to task and finish everything in one touch. However if you start to create this as a mindset you will become far more effective and efficient and have less left for another day. This frees up huge amounts of time and de-stresses life as well.

Process it. By having a process, you stop wasting the time trying to work out what to do with something. It also reduces the risk of getting part way through and findin a key element is missing. Like any piece of software creating an effective programme can take time, but experience tells us this front end lending will save time in the long run.

Plan It For each new week make a list of what needs to be done. Then take the top few items and out them on a posit it note. Place the note where you will see it during the day. Mine go in my diary. Each week you will then do at least those critical items.

I do not claim to be these as original to me, far from it, but these are just some of the techniques I use to get the best out of my time bank. I hope they will help you to do the same. I would love to hear your best Time Tips.