A life audit sounds big. Most guides hand you a wheel of eight life areas and ask you to rate each one from 1 to 10. You do it, you feel vaguely bad about your 4 in fitness, and nothing changes, because a score doesn't tell you what to stop doing on Wednesday nights.
This post takes a different approach: audit your life the way an accountant audits a business, from evidence. You list what you actually spend your hours and money on, from your calendar, your bank statement and your phone. Then you mark each item keep, change or cut, and put every change on a 2027 calendar with a date.
TL;DR
- List every recurring commitment with its real hours or cost, then mark each one keep, change or cut.
- Use records, not memory: last month's calendar, bank statement and screen time report.
- The most common mistake is deciding to cut something without a date to actually do it.
Who this is for
- Project manager: You already audit projects for scope creep, and this applies the same habit to your own weeks.
- Accountant: Working from records instead of impressions is how you'd want any audit done.
- New parent: When free time shrinks, a list of every commitment shows what to drop first.
- Freelance consultant: Unpaid commitments and old subscriptions add up, and the sheet puts a number on them.
- Executive assistant: You manage other people's calendars all day, and this points the same skill at your own.
Step 1: gather the evidence
Set aside about two hours. Before you open a blank sheet, pull up these four things for the last full month (or the last three, if you can):
- Your calendar. Every recurring meeting, class, practice, call and volunteer shift.
- Your bank and card statements. Every subscription, membership and repeat payment.
- Your phone's screen time report. Both iPhone and Android show time per app.
- Your inbox and group chats. Any committee, club or group that expects something from you.
The point is to find the things you've stopped noticing. A Thursday call you joined two years ago, a streaming service you forgot about, a group chat that takes an hour a day.
Step 2: list everything in a sheet
Make a Google Sheet with these columns:
- A: Item (Thursday team call, gym membership, kids' soccer carpool)
- B: Area (work, health, family, money, home, fun, community)
- C: Hours per month
- D: Cost per month
- E: Energy (a dropdown of Up, Flat or Down: how you feel after it)
- F: Chose it? (a checkbox: did you actively choose this, or did it just happen?)
- G: Decision (a dropdown: Keep, Change, Cut)
- H: Action and date
Be honest with the hours. A weekly 1-hour call with 15 minutes of prep and 15 of follow-up is about 6 hours a month, not 4.
Add a few totals at the top:
- Hours in commitments:
=SUM(C3:C) - Monthly recurring costs:
=SUM(D3:D) - Hours freed by cuts:
=SUMIF(G3:G,"Cut",C3:C) - Money freed by cuts:
=SUMIF(G3:G,"Cut",D3:D)
(Start your list in row 3 so the totals can sit in rows 1 and 2.)
Step 3: keep, change or cut
Sort the sheet by column E so the Down items are together, then decide each row:
- Keep: it leaves you Up, or it's Flat and you'd choose it again today.
- Change: the thing is right but the shape is wrong. A weekly call that could be every other week. A gym you'd use if it were closer to work.
- Cut: a Down you didn't choose, or a cost you'd never sign up for today.
Column F is the quiet one. Rows where the box is unticked, things that just happened to you, are where most cuts come from.
When you're done, look at the totals. "Hours freed by cuts: 14" is a real number. That's an evening and a half a week you can now give to something you picked.
Step 4: put every change on a date
A decision in column G isn't done until it has a date in column H. Cancelling a subscription takes five minutes, but only if there's a day it happens. Leaving a committee needs an email and maybe a handover meeting.
Big Year is a free Google Sheet with all of 2027 on one page, which makes it easy to spread the changes out so they don't all land in January.
- Copy Big Year and open the BIG tab.
- Put the quick cuts in the first two weeks: type "cancel gym" on Monday January 4, "leave Thursday call" on Friday January 8.
- Put changes that need a conversation later in the month, with a note of who to talk to.
- Add what the freed time is for. If you cut 14 hours a month, type the new thing into the days it takes over.
- Add three re-audit dates in SETTINGS so they highlight: March 31, June 30 and September 30, the quarter ends.
- Print it from the DOWNLOAD tab on Letter, A4, Tabloid or A3.
If you want a column of days with room to write what each change involves, the PILLAR layouts in Big Year Premium ($10 for 10 templates) put a mini month above a vertical day list. On March 31, open the audit sheet again, add anything new that crept in, and decide those rows too.
Common pitfalls
- Auditing from memory: Open the calendar and statements first, or you'll miss the things you've stopped noticing.
- Undercounting hours: Include prep, travel and follow-up time, not just the meeting itself.
- Cutting everything at once: Spread cuts over a few weeks so each one actually happens.
- Freed time with no plan: Put the new thing on the calendar, or old commitments fill the gap again.
- One audit and done: Put the quarterly re-audit dates on the calendar now.
FAQ
What is a life audit?
A review of where your time, money and energy actually go, followed by decisions about what to keep, change or cut. This version uses records like your calendar and bank statement instead of scores.
How long does a life audit take?
About two hours for the first one, mostly gathering evidence. Quarterly re-audits take less, since you only add what's new.
What categories should a life audit include?
Work, health, family, money, home, fun and community cover most things. The categories matter less than listing every recurring item.
How often should I do a life audit?
A full one once a year and a short check each quarter works well. For 2027 that's March 31, June 30, September 30 and the end of December.
Can I do a life audit in Google Sheets?
Yes. One row per commitment with hours, cost, energy and a Keep, Change or Cut dropdown, plus SUMIF totals to show what the cuts free up.
Planning next year? Get the Big Year, a free 2027 calendar in Google Sheets.
