Diagnostics and Data

Guiding Principle: Avoiding vagueness and creating clarity around work-life balance is the starting place

Thanks to Ben Franklin, we’ve all surely heard the saying “time is money” at one point in our lives. We make money through work in two ways: by earning it and by means of being busy while working (i.e., not spending it). The phrase is meant to remind us that our time is valuable and, of course, that money is directly correlated to how we spend time. If we’re productive, focused, and motivated, we make money. And if not, we miss the opportunity to make money by wasting time.

There’s hardly anyone who has financial stability that does not put energy into managing it. Most of us have, at some point, created a budget to track what money comes in and out of our accounts. What expenses are recurring weekly, monthly, and annually, and which are unpredictable but should be factored into our budgets to handle unexpected costs like car repairs? We know where our money is coming from, when it’s deposited, what’s for spending versus saving, and what is accruing interest. Based on these basic parameters, we know how much we have left over for down payments, vacations, splurges, home upgrades, and so on. And because we live within these known factors, we are able to mitigate the stress of managing one of life’s most important assets.

Yet, despite our understanding that time is money, so few of us have a time budget, something that shows us what time we have in the day and where we’re spending that time. We spend it working, but what exactly do we spend it on? How many hours are dedicated per day or week towards our biggest goals? We spend time with friends and family, but how? Is it at happy hours at the local bar, watching a movie, or going out for activities? How much time are we allocating for sleep? Exercising? Hobbies? What are the things we always wish we could do but never seem to have the time for, such as learning a new language, painting, or playing the piano?

Regimenting our lives in such a way may feel like we’re imprisoning ourselves, locking ourselves into a timetable. But in the same way a finance budget provides us the clarity to see where we can freely spend money, a time budget, too, gives us the freedom to spend time where it most fulfills us, knowing that we will also have time allocated to complete work. Avoiding vagueness and insisting on clarity allows us to have peace of mind and be fully present in our actions. We can also identify where we are spinning plates, doing work to avoid other work, or doing work for others, leaving us with little time to do work for ourselves.

As earthlings bound by gravity to our planet’s crust, we all have 24 hours in a day. That’s not to say we all have the opportunity to use that time in the same way, but in the case of work-life time management, we all can create a time structure that gives us visibility, and therefore more predictability, into how our day is spent. Bill Gates has shared that he structures his time down to 5-minute increments that include how he spends his workday and how he reads, has dinner with his family, and goes to sleep. We aren’t encouraging you to be this meticulous, but we suggest a starting place for an easy-to-use time budget.

While time is the first thing we want to move from vagueness to clarity with, it is not the only thing. We also want to gather data and have clarity in the following areas:

(T)ime - How am I spending it and in what areas?
(A)ttention - What are my “hell yeahs” in life and work?
(S)leep - How much am I actually sleeping, and what is the quality?
(H)abits - What are the habits that I want to add to my life?
(A)ddiction - Do I struggle with addiction to work or other areas of life?

TASHA, as we call it, is not meant to be all-encompassing but is designed to help you create an environment for consistent, restful work.