Finances aren’t the only things that need a budget.

Taking a lead in from my previous post on the book Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald, let’s talk about my favorite section of that book.

In a section called ‘Recapturing My Time’ MacDonald presents ‘MacDonald’s Laws of Unmanaged Time’. I found myself constantly referring to this list. It was so simple, but made so much sense. I will introduce the four laws and my brief interpretation, and then cover them in depth in the subsequent posts.

1. Unmanaged Time Flows Toward my Weaknesses – We often find ourselves spending an inordinate amount of time on the tasks that we are not proficient at. We instinctively know that we can manage fine by putting in only a small effort in the areas that we are gifted.
2. Unmanaged Time Comes under the Influence of Dominant People in my World – The dominant people in your life will be able to exert influence on your time choices when our time is not budgeted.
3. Unmanaged Time Surrenders to the Demands of all Emergencies – Without a plan for your time, we usually get stuck in a first come first serve time management system for the people and tasks that make demands on our time.
4. Unmanaged Time Gets Invested in Things that Gain Public Acclamation – Unbudgeted time will flow towards action and events that will give us the most immediate gratification and\or public recognition.