3 Ingeniously Practical Ways to Expand Your Resources in 2020

Congratulations on another New Year! Are you ready to discover 3 Ingenius Practical Ways to Expand Your Resources in 2020?

My Facebook feed is full of posts promising that THIS year is going to be the breakthrough year. The year of 2020 vision. The end of the struggle year. The year all our dreams come true. At first, I was excited, but after six weeks of reading singularly positive predictions, it started to sound like the fluff of pithy fortunes and horoscopes. Anyone could read those inspiring words and think, “I need a breakthrough. I’ve been struggling. I have dreams. This is the year it’s all magically going to come together.”

In my experience, though, if nothing changes, nothing changes.

Now, if you are doing all the right things and something mysterious is holding you back from getting your results, then sure, this could be your miracle year. I have a few situations like that going on in my life too.

No, I’m talking about the stuff that we know we should address but don’t and somehow, we think that 2020 is going to be different without us behaving differently. Changing our behaviours is something we can do at any time, but most of us are more receptive to change at the ushering in of a new year. So here are 3 Ingeniously Practical Ways to Expand Your Resources in 2020.

Resources

There are three invaluable resources that we all have: Time, Money and Energy.

You may feel like your amounts of each are fixed, but by incorporating these 3 practical tips, you can increase these resources and by doing so, you better position yourself to receive those positive promises for 2020.

1. Do a No-Spend Challenge

January’s budget is often tight from December spending, and I venture to guess that you would welcome an increase in cash volume. Many people have finances at the top of their breakthrough, struggle and dream lists.

By merely taking stock of what we already have in our bathroom vanity cupboards and drawers, kitchen cupboards and pantries, and in storage, we could reduce spending by using those stockpiles before buying new items.

You can do a No-Spend Challenge anywhere between a couple of weeks to a whole year, depending on your stockpiles and dedication.

Most people’s budgets are fixed for categories like housing, insurance, and auto fuel, so when looking to bank a little cash, we need to look at our groceries, health and beauty, entertainment and clothing spending. Make a game of using up all the random stuff you already have. Completing your unique version of a No-Spend Challenge increases all three of your resources. Since you are not spending money on groceries, burning fuel or spending time to go to the grocery store. You are also not using your energy reserves to shop, load and unload groceries and put them away.

As you run out of items, make two lists:

• To Be Purchased ASAP after no-spend challenge
• To Be Purchased only as needed in the future

This practice of prioritized shop-listing will avoid spending binges immediately following your challenge period. We are creatures of habit, and you may find yourself replacing a depleted item simply because you are so used to having it on hand. Consider how long it has previously sat unused and how inconvenient it will be to obtain it in the future should it be needed again.

If you’re looking for a No-Spend Challenge, I have you covered! Keep reading until the end.

Complete a Fast

It’s natural to want to eat healthy foods after a season of decadent eating, but before you make your healthy grocery list, think about completing a complete or modified fast. Even intermittent fasting can qualify. Done correctly, a food fast can have substantial health benefits, but it’s also a great money-saver. Fasting can expand the No-Spend challenge time because if you are not eating, you don’t need to buy groceries.

Fasting is also a considerable expander of time because until you have gone a few days without eating, you have no concept of how much time is spent thinking about food, preparing food, eating food and storing food takes out of your day. Take all that food distraction away, and you open up at least 90 minutes of your day for other activities. Your energy reserves can also be increased during the fasting time unless you are dealing with severe withdrawals from sugar and caffeine.

If a full food fast is too extreme for you, consider a modified food fast that keeps your meal options healthy, limited, extremely simple and no-fuss.

Download a Time/Job Software

Most of us think we are using our time effectively but are often unaware of “time sucks” in our schedule — black holes of time that does not reflect our ideal values. By downloading a digital Time/Job software on your phone, you can track your minutes and hours as though you were going to bill for them. A couple of weeks of monitoring in this way reveal just how many hours we have available and how we are using them. I did this with an inexpensive app called HoursTracker, and my productivity jumped immediately. Having to record “social media” or “watched tv” and seeing the summary of time spent on these activities at the end of the “pay period” made me realize lack of time is not my problem; time management is.

HoursTracker is meant to be used to time billable hours, but I rename the jobs to represent different activities in my life and then accumulate hours in each. Every “pay period” I can review how many hours were spent on each activity. Sample activities are:

• Sleep
• Home Care (including things such as cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping & home-related errands etc.)
• Employment
• Children (Make a job for each child to identify inequalities)
• Hobbies
• Volunteering
• Spiritual (Church, worship, bible reading, prayer, etc.)
• Self-care (Getting ready, personal upkeep, etc.)
• Exercise
• Social (Lunch and coffee dates with friends, phone calls or texting)
• Recreation (TV, Social Media, Movies, etc.)

HoursTracker makes it easy to switch timer from one “Job” to another, and you can adjust later if you make a tracking mistake along the way.

This system of tracking isn’t forever unless you want it to be. It’s just a way to snapshot your current time habits and learn from them.

Take the Expand Your Resources Challenge!

I’ve put together a 28-Day Expand Your Resources Challenge that puts all these suggestions into daily tasks that you can complete to practise these concepts. How much time, money and energy can you free up by making a few changes?