Budgeting Time and Money
by Napoleon Hill
The time has come for some very plain talk about you and your future. You have come a long way on the road that leads to happiness and success.
And now you have arrived at the sixteenth gate through which you shall have to pass. It is headed Budgeting Time and Money. After you pass through this gate you will know how to make the most of your time, and how to acquire money and make it serve a noble purpose.
If you have been an observing student, you have more useful knowledge now than many people acquire during their entire lifetimes. And it is not theoretical knowledge because it was provided by men of practical experience, who attained it by trial and error through their own rich experiences.
You have the benefit of the lifetime experiences of Henry Ford, Thomas T. Edison and Andrew Carnegie, as well as the benefit of the better portion of knowledge gained by more than five hundred other distinguished men who have helped to create the great American way of life.
All that you have learned from the experiences of these men is very important, but we have come now to the place where you must forget about other men and their achievements and direct your attention to you and your future.
Your measure of respect for time is opportunity’s measure of respect for you.
This is your personal inventory time! You must find out who you are, where you are going in life, and how you are going to get there.
HOW YOUR TIME SHOULD BE BUDGETED
Effectiveness in human endeavor calls for the organized budgeting of time. And experience, both that of successful men and those who have failed, has proved that no one may be sure of personal success without a careful time budgeting system. For the average man the twenty-four hours of the day should be divided as follows:
a. Eight hours for sleep
b. Eight hours for work in connection with your occupation.
c. Eight hours for recreation and spare time activities.
There are few circumstances under which anyone may take liberties with the first eight hour period which belongs to sleep, for nature has set aside this portion of one’s time for rest and the rebuilding and repair of the physical body, and for other bodily functions which require complete relaxation.
The second eight hours represent the period which experience has proved to be necessary for work in connection with your business, trade or profession. Here you have a wide range of choices as to the use you make of your time. You may use it so that it will yield nothing. Or you may use it so that it will bring only the bare necessities of life. Or you may use it so that it will bring you all the riches that your life demands or requires. The use made of this time will depend partly, if not entirely, upon whether you are a drifter or a person with a definite major purpose.
The happiest men are those who have learned to mix play with their work and bind the two together with enthusiasm.
The third eight hour period, known as spare time, holds the secret of all great achievement. It is the balance of power which may be thrown into any type of endeavor you desire. This is the period which enables you to follow the habit of going the extra mile, a habit which is, and always will be, an essential for success in the higher brackets of human endeavor.
Successful men recognize the value of spare time, and they agree that it can be made the most profitable of the three periods of the day. Necessity forces one to devote the first eight hour period to sleep and the second eight hour period to work. But the third period belongs to each individual – to you – to use as you choose.
Successful men have been wise enough to organize and use their spare time so that it will serve both the purpose of recreation and the development of future opportunities. They have found a recreation of the highest order in the constructive use of creative vision, planning ways and means of promoting themselves into higher and better stations in life, making new friends, experimenting with their most cherished ideas, and helping others to find their places in life.
BUDGETING INCOME AND EXPENSES
The habit of saving money should be followed on a percentage basis, by setting aside a definite percentage of all income to be saved. When the savings fund is large enough, it should be put to work in some kind of safe investment, where it will begin to multiply itself. It should not be used for current expenses, nor should it be used for emergencies if they can be handled by other means.
A portion of the income should be invested in life insurance, especially where one has others depending upon him for an education or livelihood. Life insurance not only protects one’s dependents in case of death but provides the insured with greater self-reliance and more freedom of mind for the pursuit of his occupation.
Every man is where he is, and what he is, because of the habits he has acquired. The man who lives up to the limit of his income, or beyond it, never is a free man. He is forever under bondage to others, and bondage is not a welcome circumstance. It is no part of the Creator’s purpose for man.
From here on each of us is under obligation to guard our individual sources and our time as efficiently as a well-managed corporation manages its funds and the time of its employees.
If this obligation confuses or irritates some of us, let us take comfort from the fact that it will at least lead us into better habits of self-discipline. And let us recognize that we are approaching the interpretation of a rule of human conduct which is the hope of mankind because it holds the secret by which we may escape from the liabilities of this age of confusion and chaos through which we are passing.
Presentation of this great rule has been reserved as a fitting climax to the principles previously described. It rightly serves as a climax for the sixteen preceding principles because it is the principle which gives moral guidance in the use of the power which the first sixteen principles place into your hands.
Power is a dangerous thing in the hands of someone who does not recognize a moral obligation in its use. The history of mankind proves this. You are now approaching the point in this course where you may have developed great power. Let yourself be guided in its use by the application of the principles described in these lessons.
Source: PMA Science of Success by Napoleon Hill Pages 459, 481, 482, 484, 486.
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August 17, 2018 
