Are You Short on Time and Long on Financial Distractions?

Every day presents a new important & urgent task I didn't ask for, or maybe I did.

I'd like to think I am sufficiently #organized, have a fairly clear view of what I want to accomplish most days, am effectively managing my time with numerous competing demands, and I just can't seem to get a firm grasp of the reins on this financial horse I am riding in life. Perhaps it is my need for #perfection, or on most days, just a sense of #accomplishment. The rate with which I encounter important and urgent activities that enter my path requiring my attention can become exhausting. Not only are they of a magnitude that can't be solved for in a phone call or an email, they are huge time-sucks. But I can't avoid them. And if I am dealing with these surprises, then the items I had on my list and had been actively working on are now pushed down a slot or two on what is an ever-growing to do list.

I have to remember every moment of every day is a choice

We all have choices, in fact every moment of every day is a choice. The principle that our time is our most valuable asset has been hammered into our minds regularly. Yet as time and technology advances forward the number of ways our time is taken away from us is growing exponentially. It is becoming a burden to sift through the emails, voicemails, text messages, growing number of social media outlets, meetings, phone calls, not to mention the tasks on our to do lists we feel compelled to track in hopes of completion. Despite all of these mechanisms that exist for primarily good intentions they easily get the best of us and many of our free moments in time. Setting those aside, we then look at activities that if freed up we would enjoy spending our time instead, but don't happen as much as we would prefer. These desires are based on what we enjoy, where we feel we have talents, and what we #aspire to achieve. Now if we could only sift through the noise, eliminate waste, minimize our focus to what are our true priorities, we just might find more time addressing the important and urgent items crossing our path and each moment touching only what really matters.

Short on time, long on weak personal finance organization options

I happen to enjoy investing many of my spare moments learning about and advancing my personal finances more than most. If I am going to move the ball forward in my generation while keeping the effort of monitoring my money from becoming a full-time job, I am bound to find personal finance tools that will help me do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. I am naturally inclined to read about personal finance and enjoy playing with personal finance techniques. I could spend all day doing this, I am a personal finance junky, which understandably, most people are not. I've tried several tools and many of them are worthwhile approaches to addressing certain challenges or data deficiencies in the personal finance space. However many have their own shortcomings that may not be problematic for their entrenched fans, but didn't cut it for me. I am still bound to minimize the time I spend on managing my finances while maximizing my financial growth. But, I firmly believe financial success on a personal level does not come through any quick wins, auto-pilot techniques, nor avoiding routine monitoring. But I should be efficient at doing so at least. Don't you feel the same?

Our next post takes this thought process further as we find the right tools to manage our personal finances.

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Thank you,

Jim