The ever-brilliant Carl Richards describes our Human Capital as breaking down into four budgets.
Money, Attention, Time and Energy.
At different stages of life, we will have different amounts in each of these budgets. In retirement we might have more Money and Time but maybe less in the Energy budget than we had when we were younger. In our early years we probably have lots of Attention, Time and Energy but no Money. When we are mid-career with young kids, all four budgets are probably running on empty.
The reason why it is important to consider these four budgets for ourselves is because of two reasons.
Firstly if we look at where we are spending our Money, Attention, Time and Energy, it will give us a truer picture of what we value. Very often the actual priorities differ from the ones we tell others we have. Where we spend our MATE budgets shows us clearer what the truth is.
If you tell everyone that you highly value your family but spend more Money on cars, more Attention on Facebook, more Time at work and more Energy on sports, then you are probably lying to the world and yourself.
Then second reason is if we track our budget spending, we can start to tweak it back towards our intentions.
Most people are very bad at budgeting their Money. They are worse at budgeting their Attention, Time and Energy.
Money is the easiest to track. I bank with Starling, and the app categorises my spending in real time and can summarise it beautifully over any time period I select. At this point in time, Starling tells me that my priority is my home, above all else.
Unfortunately, Attention, Time and Energy are harder to track.
I put everything into my Outlook calendar and so I can look back over a year and see where I am spending my Time (mostly at work), but it is harder to see trends than with Starling.
I can look at the Attention spent on each app on my phone (mostly listening to podcasts on Spotify or watching series on Disney+), but it doesn’t tell me what I have been giving my attention to the rest of the time.
My Energy spend is the hardest to track. I know what energises me, coffee dates with my wife, gym workouts, walks in the sunshine, and I know what drains me, but it is hard to track what I am spending intentionally.
Why this is important, is that we start life with a battery full of Attention, Time and Energy. We can drain and recharge it throughout life. At some point most of us start trading these three with an employer for Money. One of the biggest problems we encounter with clients is assessing the right time to make the switch to spending the Money budget to buy back some of the Attention, Time and Energy.
None of us know when our Time budget is going to drain down completely. Often we underestimate how our Energy budget will not recharge to the same level as we age. Most of us are giving our Attention to American Mega-Corps for no benefit to us.
As we have said before; everything in balance.
If you would like one of our advisers to help you to plan when the Time is right to start drawing on the Money, to free up our Attention and Energy, contact our office in Hook, Hampshire. We have been helping people to achieve balance for a decade and hope to do so for many more.