How Zero-Based Budgeting Can Lead to a Happier, More Fulfilling Life  

Whether you’re religious about your annual list of New Year’s resolutions or you eschew them with every fiber of your being, the beginning of January is still a good time to step back and assess what’s working and what’s not in your life and career. You may wish you had more time to spend with your family and friends, to take a class or do volunteer work, or to explore new career opportunities. Or maybe you just need a little downtime (for once!).

In our crazy, busy lives and the heavily perpetuated notion that you can “have it all,” you probably try to cram too much into your life to try to get more enjoyment out of it. And as if that doesn’t make you feel squeezed enough, your manager probably tells you every year that you can and should be doing more, more, more. Where does it all end? With a massive workload and life burn out. It’s time for a total career and life reset.

Back in the 1960s, a Texas Instruments accounting manager came up with the idea of zero-based budgeting, a method in which you evaluate the benefits and costs of every single line item to make sure resources are distributed appropriately rather than simply evaluating the new items to be added to the budget. Because each expense must be justified, this approach enables you to systematically review and, if necessary, reallocate resources to where they are most needed.

So what does this have to do with your career? It’s January and you’re sitting in your annual performance review with your manager, who says she has three new major projects you need to take on immediately. And you’re dying inside with every word, knowing that more late nights and work-filled weekends are in your not-so-distant future. But catch your breath and tell your manager that, while you understand how important those projects are to the success of the company, you’ll need to assess your priorities to see what you’ve been spending time on that’s less valuable to the company, and where you can “ZBB” from your plate to make room for the new and higher priority items.

Even better–go to the discussion prepared with a few projects in mind that you think might make sense to cut back or drop altogether. Bring stats that support your argument. For example, if very few people are reading your reports (and you can prove it), maybe you could produce them less frequently or provide the core content in a different and less time-intensive way. Maybe you’ve been doing something because “that’s the way we’ve always done it,” but you can provide evidence that the return-on-investment is no longer there. Just one little caveat –don’t go into that meeting with a laundry list of things you don’t want to do any longer, because your manager will see right through that. You need to be able to articulate what you can do that’s right for the company.

Make sure you leave that meeting with a clear agreement about what your top priorities are so you can start working on them immediately, without the existential angst of “Is this really what life is all about? Work, work, and more work?” While this approach isn’t successful with every manager, your manager may see you’re really thinking about your value to the company and how you can best contribute. No robot here!

Now that you’ve effectively performed a ZBB exercise on your career, take on your personal life. Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because you didn’t think you had the time? Do you want to take steps to start your own business? Do you want to learn how to cook French cuisine or to Tango? Make a list of everything you “have to do” and start thinking about how you can ruthlessly ZBB some things on your list. Do you meet a friend for coffee every Sunday morning who does nothing but complain about her love life (or lack thereof)? You love her, of course, but maybe you can change your meet-ups to biweekly instead so you can take a class on alternating Sundays. That dinner party you’ve been dreading? Skip it. It’s your life. Stop living it to please everyone else and remember you need to please yourself, too.

Some things simply aren’t optional and you can’t put them below the ZBB line. You may have to nag, cajole, beg, and bribe your kids to do their homework, and clearly, this is not the most rewarding part of your day. So? Outsource it. There are plenty of high school and college kids out there looking to make some money. Hire a tutor. Those extra few hours of freedom will buy you some time to practice your cooking or dancing, read a good book or, let’s get real, take a hot bath for more than five minutes.

So, start your own ZBB process and you’ll be on the road to enjoying your career and your life even just a tiny bit more. And be sure to stop by your accounting department and hug an accountant. Zero-based budgeting–it’s not just for accountants anymore!