Planning
Planning is such a great word. I'm reading an article about budgets and mistakes to avoid regarding budget planning and there are some true principles that can be likened to more than just money. Here are several true principles that are meaningful to me and hopefully will be meaningful to you too.
1. Having a budget doesn't mean not spending any money. This can also be likened to nutritional habits. A budget is a spending plan and a diet is an eating plan. (This is particularly meaningful to me because I studied nutrition and considered dietetics as a career. A diet is the sum of food consumed by an individual, not a restrictive list of dos and donts.) Having a plan enables a person to look at their habits and improve upon them. Having a plan isn't limiting, it's enabling.
2. Make goals. It makes sticking to any sort of plan easier when you have good reasons for why you will stick to it.
3. Build in fun to your plan. Great principle, don't you think? Besides financial budgets, this is also a good thing to do while managing time/scheduling. For example, during particularly busy weeks, like last week of classes or finals week, I sometimes have to schedule what I will be doing every hour for a 10-14 hour block each day. I am more able to stick with my plan knowing that I have break periods built in to my schedule.
4. Track spending. Whether it's a sum of money, a daily allotment of calories, hours in a day, or your physical, mental and emotional stores to contribute in service--tracking expenditures allows a person to see how their resources are being used compared to their goals. As for service, there's something that boosts a person's overall wellness by looking back on their day and remembering how they helped someone else. It's a serendipitous freebie in addition to the benefits of tracking spending.
5. Make your plan flexible. The opposite leads to discouragement and frustration.
6. Be united with your companion. This doesn't apply to me fully (yet) but I like the principle and have applied it in other circumstances. I like that Mom and Dad did this with us as, parents and children, in addition to spousal unity. Budgets or any type of planning usually impacts more than just one person and most of the time people are more apt to buy into a new idea when they are involved in the planning.
That's the end of my soap box discussion on planning. Please leave comments or other principles of planning that are helpful to you.
1. Having a budget doesn't mean not spending any money. This can also be likened to nutritional habits. A budget is a spending plan and a diet is an eating plan. (This is particularly meaningful to me because I studied nutrition and considered dietetics as a career. A diet is the sum of food consumed by an individual, not a restrictive list of dos and donts.) Having a plan enables a person to look at their habits and improve upon them. Having a plan isn't limiting, it's enabling.
2. Make goals. It makes sticking to any sort of plan easier when you have good reasons for why you will stick to it.
3. Build in fun to your plan. Great principle, don't you think? Besides financial budgets, this is also a good thing to do while managing time/scheduling. For example, during particularly busy weeks, like last week of classes or finals week, I sometimes have to schedule what I will be doing every hour for a 10-14 hour block each day. I am more able to stick with my plan knowing that I have break periods built in to my schedule.
4. Track spending. Whether it's a sum of money, a daily allotment of calories, hours in a day, or your physical, mental and emotional stores to contribute in service--tracking expenditures allows a person to see how their resources are being used compared to their goals. As for service, there's something that boosts a person's overall wellness by looking back on their day and remembering how they helped someone else. It's a serendipitous freebie in addition to the benefits of tracking spending.
5. Make your plan flexible. The opposite leads to discouragement and frustration.
6. Be united with your companion. This doesn't apply to me fully (yet) but I like the principle and have applied it in other circumstances. I like that Mom and Dad did this with us as, parents and children, in addition to spousal unity. Budgets or any type of planning usually impacts more than just one person and most of the time people are more apt to buy into a new idea when they are involved in the planning.
That's the end of my soap box discussion on planning. Please leave comments or other principles of planning that are helpful to you.
Nice post. I agree. I would add to write down the plan and go over it as a day dream in your head and as you watch it play out you will realize things you missed in your original plan. I like the part about being flexible. That is a hard part for me.
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