Budgeting

I posed the question to the college students at my church last Sunday. What is budgeting? I see budgeting very simply--allocation of a finite resource. Notice I did not impose any qualifiers here--I did not say "proper allocation" or "wise allocation"--just allocation. We all budget. Some of us do it poorly, some of us do it accidentally, some of us do it well. Then again, some of us do it in such a way that others think we do it poorly but it works perfectly well for us. I write this blog to inspire thought. This particular entry is to inspire thought about how you budget your most valuable resource--yourself.

Budgeting money is pretty simple. You have a list of bills, you have a set amount of income and you pay the bills. Whatever is left, you apply to other "wants." That's basically it. Granted, sometimes we have more month than we have money but the concept is simple. Budgeting yourself can be MUCH more tricky. What do I mean by budgeting myself? I have the capacity to accomplish so much per day. Part of that capacity is my time. I am allotted 24 hours in a day. Part of that capacity is my energy--mental, physical, and emotional. I also have certain obligations, appointments and relationships to keep. Those are basically my "bills" for the 24 hour "pay cycle" (stick with my analogy here). I have to decide how I am going to "spend" my 24 hours worth of capacity. If I know I have a particularly difficult (mentally) activity in the day, I may want to look at taking it easier at night. If I have a tough day physically at work, I might not want to schedule a competitive game of racquetball after work. You get the idea. The challenge is to budget yourself. Try not to drift through life accidentally. Get more out of life by applying some real basic budgeting skills. Also, beware of people that "bust your budget." Don't get caught in the Ponzi scheme of life. Some people are just there to waste your time, your emotion, your brainpower and never put anything back in the tank.
How do you budget yourself? What are some methods you use to budget yourself? Do you even think budgeting yourself is important?