It’s funny, if you follow the personal finance blogosphere, the folks who are recounting their own journeys often seem to follow a similar path.

1. In Debt
2. Out of Debt. What to do now?
3. Save, Save, Save
4. Figure out some investing.
5. Money. I mean, not a lot of money, but enough money.
6. What do I do with my time now that I’m not worried about money?

I have personally been thinking a lot of about intentionality and relationships.

I think one big reason it’s on my mind is, of course, my mom. I keep regretting not leaving work a little sooner to spend more time with her, but it’s not an insurmountable regret because life happens and we all have to work. What I find myself going back to even more is all the times I was here, but I wasn’t really“here.” In retrospect, all it took was a board game or a movie we all watched together to make an evening special, because we were all present together in the moment. I find I spent an awful lot of hours at home on our dark days, but I was exhausted or crabby or any number of things that meant I was not really present in the moment.

I’ve also been thinking about my career in these terms too, because it is the main thing that keeps me away from most of the people I love, but when I reflect on the last several years of being home just intermittently, I find that being away for long stretches of time is kind of okay, as long as I was intentional about the time I did have with others. I also find its way easier to be intentional about times with friends versus my family, for some reason.

I suspect it’s because I just thought they’d always be there.

At church last week, our pastor was talking about the Eisenhower Matrix.

Eisenhower has this famous quote:

 He had a system for determining which things were which too.

You start with a large square. Now draw a line that cuts the square in half the long way. Along the left side of the square, note the top half is Important and the bottom half is Not Important.

Now draw a line that cuts the big square in half the vertical way (top to bottom). You should now have 4 equal square. Along the top of the big square, write Urgent and then No Urgent.

Your box should look something like this:

 It’s amazing how the Important/Not Urgent box gets the shaft so much. The Important/Not Urgent box is the box of New Year’s Resolutions, guys. It’s the box you have to work on constantly to be a better human.

Of course, since it was right after New Year’s Eve, one of the examples our pastor used was losing weight, which I suck at. But you know what, every time I have been a good, healthy weight, it wasn’t cause of some crazy, urgent diet. It was cause I put effort into cooking my own meals, I made it to the gym regularly, I mostly just drank water.

In other words, I made a ton of important, tiny changes and stuck with them. Even when “Urgent” things would get in my way.

What goes in what box is not a clear black and white line here either. Another example my pastor gave of things that are Urgent but are Not Important was most phone calls. Personally, one of my deepest regrets right now is that I didn’t call home more often.

The top of my Important/Not Urgent box is investing in my relationships, so for me, taking time to chat with a friend, even about trivial matters, is actually something I have to put in my Important/Not Urgent box, even though it’s a struggle for me. So is reaching out to friends to hang out.

There are definitely rougher places to be in than trying to prioritize family and friends for a season – and develop better habits to keep them solidly in the Important half of the box, even when they’re Not Urgent.

But geez, what does this have to do with money, right?

Well, climbing the personal finance mountain helps create the money that frees up the time to focus on the relationships.

But also, the Eisenhower Matrix can help you in your personal finance journey. You can split your current bills into their correct boxes in the matrix to see where you could cut back.

You can split up how you’re spending your time, like the matrix above, and use some of that reclaimed time to build up skills to further your career or start a side hustle.

You can download apps like Moment to track how much time you’re actually spending on your phone, if you want to get an idea of possible hours you could reclaim daily.  Rescue Time can do the same for your computer.

What could you achieve with all those extra hours?