I am going to level with you. While I may have tons to say on building business income, investing in real estate, setting up Airbnb, keeping up on personal bills and managing the minutia is not my strong suit. That being said, there is a way to minimize the impact of this, and that is automation.
Efficiency of Batching
Batching is doing a series of related tasks in succession. It can be a great productivity tool if used properly. The reason why batching is so effective is because there is a cost to switching from one task to another.
The idea of multitasking that was around in the 90’s has been pretty thoroughly debunked. So to replace it, it is common to focus on doing tasks in a sequential order. The problem is anytime you switch from one task to the next, your brain is still thinking about the last task to an extent.
So the idea of batching is to keep a succession of tasks that require the same thought process to be completed at the same time.
Lets say you have the tasks in a month of paying mortgage, a few credit cards, and utility bills. If you pay them a few days before each one is due, it would require you to switch tasks from whatever you were doing. Get into bill payment mode, pay the bill, and then switch focus back to what you were working on. Probably causing a 15 minute break in focus each time.
If you batch the tasks to one day each month, it might take a total of 30 minutes total to pay all the bills and switching focus back to what you were working on. This change can account for a few hours of focus gained every month.
Putting Bills into a Calendar
I use Asana to set up recurring events to make sure bills are being paid. I use this as my notifications for bills coming up rather than relying on emails from each company. The notifications from the companies are not consistent from one type of bill to the next. They can either be too distracting, or not helpfully timed. By setting it up in Asana I take control of the matter and set the notifications in a way that benefits me.
Setting up Asana to give me an alert, I can use to make sure I have moved the money out of a savings account and into my checking account for a home improvement I put on my credit card for instance.
Paying Bills Automatically
Setting up bills to pay automatically is a great way to not have to focus on them each month. I recommend trying to set up the payments to occur on the same day so you can make sure you have a sufficient balance that day and are not surprised.
When paying credit cards automatically, it can be a good idea to set them to pay the minimum balance automatically. Then each month, you manually make the full payment. This can help avoid overdrafts.
Automatically Saving
By setting up automatic savings, you are automating your accounts. It allows you to save for emergency, big projects, etc.
These accounts can help tremendously in budgeting rather than keeping a single account with heap budget. For instance, you can create an account where you save automatically out of each paycheck for your hobby. Then you will have clear picture of whether you are spending too much or perhaps being too stingy with your hobby. By doing this, you can avoid costs steadily creeping up.
Reducing Willpower Requirements
By setting up automation when you are clear headed, you can reduce the need for willpower to continue making good personal finance decision. It might be incredibly difficult to make contributions into your retirement accounts once a year to get you to the amount you would like.
Setting up automation allows for you to take little steps, and not have to “do the right thing” over and over again.
You are not getting whipped around by notices of payments due and having to figure out how to pay it, because things have already been set in their place to automatically save.
Planning Review of Capital Accounts
By batching payments, and creating automation you have freed up some of your time. You can use some of this time to focus on reviewing the big picture. Each month, you should dedicate a block of time just to reviewing where you are financially and how you are doing.
This honest look into your finances allows you to correct spending habits that are out of line with how you planned before they snowball.
Conclusion
By setting up automation in your financial accounts, you can gain both time and focus. It allows you to spend the time to think about the big picture rather than being in a reactive mode.
