I have witnessed some people with really bad time management skills.  You could literally give them 48 hours in a day and they would still find a way to fill it up with useless or unproductive work.

Time management is an important skill for your life.  It is important for productivity, for happiness, and for your overall well being.  I have seen people with good time management skills and they may or may not be good with managing their money.  But virtually everyone I see with bad time management skills is terrible at managing their money.  So while good time management skills won’t guarantee that you will handle your money well, bad time management will almost certainly guarantee that you won’t handle your money well.

I am not sure it this is correlation or causation, but I tend to think that bad time management is at least partially a cause for bad money management.

I’ve known people who waste money because they don’t have the time (or don’t make the time) to step back and look at the big picture.  Imagine somebody who has a gym membership at $100 per month, who rarely uses the gym.  Over a period of a couple of years, it adds up to thousands of dollars of waste.  But the person just procrastinates saying that he will eventually cancel the membership or will eventually start using the gym.

There is a theory that people will always use the time they are allotted for a project.  This really is true to a large degree, at least when applied reasonably.  If you are given 30 minutes to write a 100 page book, there is no way it can be done.  But someone given 30 days to write a 100 page book might be just as likely to get it done as someone who is given one year, or even no time limit at all.

Sometimes a little bit of pressure in life is necessary.  If we have too much time to make a decision, it makes us indecisive.  Deadlines can be good.

You should try to structure your life in this manner where you can.  You should also give yourself deadlines when it comes to your money.  Let’s say you are planning to buy your first gold coin or you are planning to look at your first investment house.  Sometimes you need to give yourself an artificial deadline to do it.  If you wait too long, you may never take the first step.

It seems there is always a trade-off in life between time and money.  But as you get older, you will probably find you want more time.  Time is money.  But your time on this planet is also limited.  You can always get back lost money.  You can’t get back lost time.