Have you ever heard the expression, “Time is money”? There’s some truth to it! We “spend” money just like we “spend” time, and in both cases, we have to spend it wisely if we want to get something good in return. Just like you might get an allowance of 10 dollars a week, or 30 dollars for a trip to the mall, each day we’re given 24 hours of time.

The easiest way to help you get everything done is to budget that time! This is all about:

• Examining your Have-To’s and Want-To’s, and how much time they’ll take up.

• Working out a plan that lets you spend the right amount of minutes or hours on each one.

Once you have this plan, a “time budget,” you’ll be better able to create a Daily Schedule and Weekly Planner. Of course, every day isn’t exactly the same as the next, so it may help you to make a different time budget for different days.

Let’s look at a sample time budget:

Wednesday:

Sleep	8 hours
Shower, dressing, ready for school	½ hour
Breakfast	½ hour
Bus to school	½ hour
School	7 hours
Bus home	½ hour
Soccer practice	2 hours
Household chores	½ hour
Homework	2 hours
Dinner	½ hour
TV time	1 hour
Reading/personal time	1 hour
Total time spent:	24 hours

Great! That day’s budget works out, because it all adds up to 24 hours. If the total came out to more than that, we would have to choose something to cut back on or drop from that day.

When you make these types of decisions, you Choose Priorities.