Paying Yourself First

You hear financial planners tell you this all the time, "When saving for retirement you need to remember to pay yourself first."  This isn't always easy.  But when they show you the charts and graphs about what that money will do over time, it makes a lot of sense.

Financial planning is not the only area of your life where this motto makes sense.

Think about how you spend your day.  How much time to do spend for yourself?  Do you even make time just for yourself everyday?   Is that time you're spending on yourself really for you? Are you doing something because it makes you feel good or rejuvenated in some way? (And no, I don't really think that sleeping in some mornings counts as spending time on yourself and neither does reading a book on the sidelines of your child's sports practice.)

If you are already making time for yourself, then smile, be proud and go on to read something else, the rest of this post is for the those of us that think we can't find time for ourselves.

As a society we are told to be selfless and put others first.  That idea can fill us with guilt over doing something others might consider self indulgent.  "Oh, I can't get a massage/buy that book/take a long bubble bath, I should spend that money/time on ______."

Does that sound familiar?

I know it does to me.  But thinking in these terms devalues us; it says that everyone else is more important and we don't deserve to treat ourselves as good as we treat others.  However, I am sure you have also heard the idea that you can't take care of others unless you take care of yourself . . .and I'd like to add first to the end of that statement.  Now, I don't mean that you should always think of yourself first, but instead that you should plan out your time in a manner that pays yourself first.

Look at your week, pencil in the things that you have to get done on a set schedule (such as the kids soccer practice, work, school, etc.).  Find time in each day's schedule and set it aside for yourself.  You can simply mark it "Me Time" and decide what you want to do with it later.  Now, when the hustle and bustle of life happens and invitations and new obligations come up, you will not find that you suddenly ran out of time for yourself.  You will need to make a conscious decision to reschedule your Me Time, which is completely OK.

Notice I didn't say give up the time, I said reschedule.

There will be times when life happens and that time slot must go to something else.  I just ask that at you take a moment to identify another bit of time for you. Maybe it will have to be less than what you originally had on the schedule, and again I say that is OK.  The idea is to build the habit of creating Me Time and finding a way to keep yourself important in your life.

I haven't always been the best at making time for myself.  It takes practice.  But when I slip into bad habits and give up my time, it is noticeable, and I make an effort to get back in the habit.

Here's to Me Time!  Something we all deserve.