I remember how intrigued I was when years ago, and long before I had heard of time management, I recognised the link between time and money, realising that we say that we spend or invest both time and money, and also talk about saving time and money.

Moreover we usually find that in order to save time, we have to spend money, and vice versa. For example, to save time cooking, we might buy ready- prepared food. Our decision depends on our circumstances and priorities someone else might well prefer to save some money and spend more time preparing and cooking a meal.

We make these choices all the time and often have no objective yardstick to show us how effective they are unless our choices are so extreme that eventually we are totally overloaded with commitments, or on the other hand we run out of money! Constantly trying to keep a balance between spending and saving time and money demands a willingness to keep checking priorities.

This is particularly true of self-employed people starting or growing a business. It can be tempting to try and keep all costs as low as possible and do everything yourself. But this can be counter-productive when you realise just how many activities business start-up and business growth entail.

You need to think carefully about money and time management. If you can pay a specialist to do a job and thus free yourself up to do something else, that may be the better solution. Our investments in both time and money will ultimately pay off in the success of our business and the happiness of our lives. It makes sense to think carefully about the balance.

Andy Britnell

Andy Britnell has worked as a professional musician, a cheesemonger and in hotels, including Claridges and the Savoy in London. He spent 15 years with BT, latterly designing and delivering international management, sales and graduate development programmes. He now lives in Cornwall, UK, where as well as enjoying the surf and the coastal footpath, he runs a training and coaching practice specialising in sales, customer service and personal development training for the private and public sectors. He is an accredited coach and trainer of the Insights Discovery System which is a model based on the pioneering personality profiling work of Carl Jung. Using colour as a common language for better understanding of self and others, it helps people operate and communicate more effectively. Andy gains great satisfaction from helping his clients to grow and learn, and from the rapid progress they make in their business and personal lives. He works constantly on his own development and practises Ki Aikido, the ancient Japanese art of working with energy.