goals Archives - Credit Connection

There are few careers and lifestyles out there that are without their stressful phases… therefore, it’s vital to understand the importance of time management. Having a managed, stress-free schedule can make a huge difference for your personal finances. A lot of similarities can be drawn between managing money and time. For example – always wondering where it went!

Improving Time Management Benefits Your Finances!

Effective time management is an essential skill for any successful human being. Successfully managing one of these aspects gives us the ability to transfer our resources into the other. On a daily basis, we face a multitude of time pressures. Time management is about taking control of your available time – before it takes control of you!

Streamline Your Priorities!

Many people fall into the trap of completing tasks as they pop up… or focusing on doing the simple tasks first because they’re easier. Unfortunately, this can lead to time-sensitive or urgent tasks being overlooked; creating far more work pressure than required. The most effective method for overcoming this? Determine your priorities. It’s simpler than you think; especially if you follow our advice and create a daily to-do list.

Being able to prioritise stretches everything further. By prioritising tasks, you intend to accomplish your tasks in order of their hierarchical importance. Prioritising and completing tasks that matter more also creates a better sense of personal success. Having a clear focus on your time and money goals will make it easier to stay on track. A focus on goals will also help you with the prioritisation of what matters most.

Time Management is as Easy as A, B, C!

For a very simple way to prioritise your tasks, try thinking about each of them on 3 levels of priority: A being the most urgent, B being relatively time-bound and C as being something you can postpone tomorrow without any negative effect.

The Difference Between Priorities and Goals

Think of goals as being part of the ‘bigger picture’; tangible milestones that you’re trying to achieve (e.g. saving for a house deposit). Priorities are the things that you’ll need to say yes or no to in order to reach that goal.

For example, in order to pay off your mortgage faster, your priorities need to be making your money work harder for you.

Develop a Routine

Having a routine will cut down the amount of time spent on decision making each day. Albert Einstein owned several variations of the same grey suit, which he wore every day. He reasoned he could use the extra brainpower and time for more beneficial purposes, instead of deciding what to wear.

We recommend creating a simple to-do list that you can follow each morning and afternoon.

Example Routine/To-Do List

Morning

Turn on the computer and make a coffee
Check email and respond to urgent ones
Review to-do list – adding non-urgent emails
Review lesson plans for the day

Afternoon

Send emails as needed
Tidy any mess from the day
Write a to-do list for tomorrow
Prepare materials for the next day’s work

Don’t Freak Out!

If you don’t meet all your time management goals straight away, don’t expend energy on stress. Building resilience is all about making ongoing progress in time management. As long as you’ve done your best, there is simply no point in adding stress to your to-do list for tomorrow.

No matter how hard you work to manage your time, there are still only 24 hours in a day to get it all done. Spend a while observing your day to day work as objectively possible to identify areas where improvements can be made if you feel you need to.

Throughout your lifetime, you will always be saving up for something… whether it’s a bag, car or a house, these wants and needs all start as a goal.

Make a Plan for Your Money – Set Goals!

Making a plan and setting goals is the single most important step to achieving improved financial health. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” isn’t a saying for nothing.

Be SMART About It!

To give yourself the best chance of sticking to your financial goals, they must be S.M.A.R.T – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. Once you have your SMART goal in mind, you can create a plan for how you’ll achieve it.

For example, if you want to pay off your $5000 credit card debt by the end of the year, work out how much you are able to allocate to your goal each day/week or month. By breaking your goals into smaller, more manageable pieces, you will find the difficulty factor you have given to them decreases rapidly!

Specific: I will pay off my credit card balance of $5000 before the end of 2021

Measurable: The current balance is $5000; I will make monthly payments of $420 until it is paid off.

Achievable: I have 12 months of 2021 to pay the total, I know that I make X amount per week and I can use any extra from my tax return in July to cover any extra interest or make another payment.

Realistic: I’d love to pay it all off tomorrow, but that isn’t realistic. Based on my budget and discussions with my local financial adviser I am capable of paying $550 per month but have left a buffer for extra savings or unexpected expenses.

Time-bound: I will have it paid off by December 31, 2021.

Achieving Your Goals

Setting tangible and realistic goals; as well as following them up and tracking your progress, are fundamental practices to achieving desired success in anything.

Financial goals can be broken up into 3 sub-categories – short-term, mid-term and long-term. Figuring out which sub-category your financial goal falls under is the first step to setting up your goal. The next step is to determine how much money you need for it. Then, create a budget to regulate a percentage of your income to go towards a saving account for the financial goal. Now, you might have more than 1 goal, so you must prioritise each of your financial goals.

It is easy to enjoy spending money… it is used as a luxury and obscures any foresight of the future. This is why financial goals are so important. Setting financial goals will help you figure out what you are trying to achieve. You will better be able to define your own success!