This is somewhat of a continuation of my previous post on solving problems. I am currently more interested in time management strategies than time management games.
You’ve probably heard someone say before that “time is money”. This is obviously true for some people, such as entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur, in many cases, can always be doing something grow or improve his business(es) further, so that they will make more money.
For example, if an entrepreneur has a problem that, if solved, would make his business more profitable and would result in an extra $50,000 a year directly in that entrepreneur’s pockets, then obviously the time spent on solving that problem would translate into money. Let’s say the problem would take 2 weeks worth of working a “normal” (40 hours a week) work schedule to solve, for a total of 80 hours. If you could spend 80 hours to earn an extra $50,000 per year, that breaks down to $625 per hour for the time spent solving that problem.
Thus, a person with a mentality that time is money would look at such a scenario like this: “Every hour I’m not working toward solving that problem, I’m losing $625/hr”. One can see how this mentality can drive a person to great financial success. Furthermore, the “time is money” mentality is a cornerstone for capitalism for this reason.
If at this point, you’re sitting there saying “But I’m not an entrepreneur, and that doesn’t apply to me or my job” and can’t figure out how you could apply the “time is money” mentality to your career and life, then I have an alternative for you: Time is Equity.
Every minute of your life can be analyzed for how much value was created for your life during the activity which you were doing for that minute.
When most people think of building equity, they think of growing the value of their financial interest in real estate. Now apply that to your life, not necessarily in financial terms, but in general.
You can build equity in your life by growing the value of your thoughts, abilities, and actions which translate into increased personal fulfillment and happiness, and sometimes, financial gain.
This could be done in a variety of ways. One could go back to school and continue their education in an effort to improve their life. For others, it may involve learning a new language, a new skill, perhaps learning to play an instrument, or simply using an existing skill more often.
If you like to bake and are quite good at it, but you only bake one or two times a year, what good is it doing you to have that skill? On the other hand, if you like to bake and are not good at it, how do you expect to get better at it without practice? That’s only an example, but why sit down and watch tv for 5 solid hours, when you could improve a skill that will bring you far more fulfillment than those tv shows – a skill that will create new value in your life.
I have played the piano since I was 5 years old, and I’ve had so many people say to me ”I wish I could play the piano”. The fact is that most of those people could if they’d spend less time practicing escapism and more time building equity in their lives. They might say “Oh, but I don’t have talent.” That’s an excuse, just like I discussed in the last article about solving problems. Sure, talent might help one to learn piano more quickly and to possibly be better at it, but it’s not a requirement to learn to play.
A salesman could spend time learning more sales techniques and perhaps even creating new sales techniques of his or her own. Some industries require you to maintain a certain level of ongoing improvement. If you work in virtually any form of the Information Technology industry, you would likely be left behind very quickly if you didn’t keep up with all of the many new developments and general evolution of the industry.
Your True Priorities
If you asked a group of people what things are most important to them in life, you would probably hear the exact set of stereotypical answers that one would expect. Faith/Religion/Diety, family and kids, country, and so on. In reality, the things that are truly most important to a person can be easily measured by determining what a person does with their free time. For example, if you have 4 hours of free time every day, and you spend 3 hours of that time time each day watching tv, then it’s clear that watching tv is your #1 priority in life.
Now you can try to argue that all you want, but you won’t convince me that anything else is your #1 priority until you prove it by spending the bulk of your free time on that activity every day instead. Most people do not think about life this way, however. Instead, they just continue practicing escapism routinely in their free time, as they’ve been conditioned to do by society. After all, you might not fit in at work if you can’t take part in the discussion of what happened on __________ (insert name of tv show here) the night before.
It’s funny to me how many people change their priorities, activies, tv shows, clothing style, even their dialect and general lifestyle to be more like those of the people they work with in an effort to fit in. It is an interesting thing to watch. Most people who do this have no idea they’re even doing it, and sometimes you can even predict what thing a person will adopt next in order to “fit in”.
Understanding Time Equity
When you boil it down, it’s really about 2 things. First, it’s about time management. If you don’t know how to manage your time efficiently, you need to practice. If you don’t know where all of your time goes, this will help. Keep a log of everything that you do, broken down by either hour or half hour all day, every day, for a week. Review it at the end of the week, and you’ll see where you spent the bulk of your free time and the areas where you can use your time more efficiently.
For example, you might notice that you’re spending a lot more time in the morning getting ready for work than what you thought and you may decide you could shave 15 minutes off of that, giving you 15 minutes of extra free time in the evenings. To some, this may not sound like a lot, but if you find just 4 instances like this in your day, you could give yourself an extra hour per day of free time.
After you review your log from the first week, create a schedule for yourself that looks just like the one from the first week, except this time, make general plans for how you’re going to spend your day each day. Such as 6am, wake up, get ready for work. 7:30am, leave for work, 8am-530pm, work, 6pm, get home, 6pm-7pm, dinner, and so on, planning out each day, and stick to the schedule the best that you can. This will get you in the habit of being more time conscious and aware of how much time your spending on various activities. After you become accustomed to it, you shouldn’t need a written schedule anymore, as it should become natural.
The second key to understanding time equity is simply to use your time wisely. This cannot be stressed enough. Both of these principles can be applied in the workplace as well. If you first learn to manage your time efficiently, then have the discipline to use that time wisely, you will be well on your way to increased productivity and fulfillment.
I have one quick bone to pick. I have seen a lot of instances around the web where people are spelling time management as timemanagement. Really, timemanagement? I understand that typos happen, but I’m thinking that any spellcheck would find that. Anyhow, let me know if you would prefer to read more content on time management games or on time management strategies.
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