Triangle Time — Nerves — Money for simple planning and evaluation of personal resources.

With my first “test” post on Habré, I think to present the community with my own system for assessing and balancing the costs of personal “resources” and getting them myself.

At the end of my stormy youth, when I had already begun to think that there were other shades between all kinds of black and white, but I had not yet figured out exactly which ones, I needed a kind of mental scheme, according to which I could evaluate my personal expenses, and their personal benefits from any business or project. As a result of long-term reflections, generalizations and other remorse of cookies, the simplest and most obvious figure was derived, but at the same time rather complex to fully reflect everything that follows from the project.

So, I present to your judgment - the triangle of Time — Nerves — Money and its practical application.
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Initially, this is the simplest construction - three imaginary axes, it is possible even on a plane by which both benefits and costs in three categories are measured according to both plus and minus. This system in no way pretends to accuracy or completeness (or, to be honest, novelty and originality), but sometimes serves as an excellent skeleton for thought.

So imagine that you started a business. Or Case. Or even a huge project. Personal, very personal - because when he is not personal, it is still better to formalize the costs and benefits in some other, more precise way - and there are a lot of such methods now. And sometimes you need to evaluate, and is it worth it to do it at all, and if so, how? My model comes to the rescue. Three categories reflect literally everything that you can receive or spend, and although on the whole everything is clear and so, let us analyze them in a little more detail.

Time

The most obvious at this point is the cost of your own time. It is necessary to study everything that you need for your Cause, in order to organize or execute this Cause. It goes to direct costs. Sometimes Time is indirectly influenced by Money - for example, when it is necessary to accumulate start-up capital, or Nerves - when, for example, you are so tired in the process of doing the Work that you have to spend extra days and hours on rest.

But although traditionally there are continuous disadvantages on this scale, future savings can be recorded as a plus - take, for example, automation of routine operations, especially when there are many of them - after spending a couple of hours now, in the future it will be possible to recoup these hours a hundredfold.

Nerves

For those to whom I previously expounded on this theory, the Nerves caused the greatest difficulty - for some reason, they were not taken into account. And after all, it is here that your own state and emotions are found - and here irritation, stress, and other nerves. In the plus on this axis, the most noticeable moral satisfaction is “I did it!”, “I did it !” Or “ I did it!”. The accent changes to taste. Here is self - development in various ways. Increase self-esteem. Improved mood. Motivation. et cetera.

On the other hand, the negative part of the scale is also not a gift. No one needs, for example, the appetition of performing routine operations over and over again. Or take the eternal friction with colleagues. Foolish meetings. The deterioration of the atmosphere in the family. Eternal fatigue and other chronic red eyes. And so on and so forth - everyone can substitute here everything that relates to emotions, well-being, his own motivation.

Most often, Nerves are balanced with Money - to pay for something now, so as not to think about it all the time - a great opportunity for those who have it. And on the contrary, Money is received with expenses, first of all, Nerves , but only in the Second Time . (This remark, however, does not apply to a typical office worker - there, of course, Time is in the first place). In addition, it is often, very often necessary to take into account both sides of this scale - often chipping your head against the wall of an unsolvable task, splitting granite of science and other dangerous actions ultimately lead to a more than positive state and mood.

Money

They are money . Plus, minus, balance - all this is written before me, for me, and often much better than me. In general, Money can either go into the Case or appear as a result of it. Sometimes directly — for example, when your Case is initially thought of as earning revenue — and sometimes indirectly. The importance of money by itself everyone decides for himself.

Balance

And here, in summing up, and all the most interesting begins. What to choose to spend - Time or Money ? What is more preferable to receive - the same Money , or calming Nerves ?

I will try to illustrate to illustrate a simple household example, which is not even a project or a business, but the most perfect thing is a dishwasher. Going consistently and from the end on our little scheme - Money here participates in the most obvious way - we spend it. And we continue to spend on all the consumables for it - chemistry, spare parts, when required, etc. Indirectly, Money can spend the need to take time off from work on the day of installation. Plus here it seems to take nowhere. At the very beginning, the nerves sag a little - you need to understand where to shove it, where to put what was there, in the extreme case, to re-plan the kitchen at all - after which they begin to ekononitsya with terrible force during the operation. Even without accurate weighing on this scale, I personally get an absolute plus. The time here is similar to the Nerves - first a bit wasted, then in a deafening plus.

Thus, we generally spent a certain amount of Money to compensate for Time and Nerves in the future. We have dismantled a few details of the planned case on my small model and we already know where we are in the black, where in the minus, and most importantly - why, where pitfalls can arise and what else we have to consider additionally.

Now you can balance - change some details of the upcoming business to get benefits on other axes. In more complex cases, you can make a second or third pass before balancing, to see how the first-order changes affect other resources. Again, in complex and lengthy Affairs, the importance and “scale” of the axes may change over time, which also sometimes needs to be taken into account.

Such a seemingly unpretentious system has often helped me personally, as well as many of those I acquainted with it, to think and plan Deeds and Projects from all kinds of small things to fairly large and lengthy and served as good help in initial planning. But on the other hand, it is extremely subjective. Use.

Ps. To the state to which the system is now, there was still the axis of Health , but in the end it merged with Nerva . To whom health is very, very important, maybe it should be allocated separately.