https://www.psychologytoday.
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Time is More Valuable than Money
You can use your time to make money, but you can't buy more time.
Most people look at their bank accounts with great attention and assess how
much money they have to spend, to invest, and to give away. But they don’t
look at their time the same way, and end up wasting this incredibly valuable
resource. In fact, time is much more valuable than money because you can use
your time to make money, but you can’t use money to purchase more time.
Time is the great equalizer. Each day has only 24 hours—nobody has any more
than anyone else. Everyone, from poets to presidents, fills those hours, one after
the other, until they are all filled up. Every single minute is unique, and once
gone, can never be regained.
When you look at someone who has accomplished a lot, you can be pretty sure
that he or she has spent considerable amounts of time mastering the required
skills, filling hours upon hours with hard work. There are those who look at
others’ accomplishments and say, “I had that idea," or “I could have done that.”
But ideas are cheap and intentions are just that. If you don’t invest the time
needed to achieve those goals then all you have are empty ambitions.
People often say, “I don’t have the time to …” Fill in the blank with whatever
you like: exercise, make dinner, write a book, start a company, run for political
office. What makes these people think that they have less time than anyone
else? Of course they don’t. We all have the same 24 hours in each day and make
real decisions about how we spend them. If you really want to get in shape, then
carve out time to exercise. If you want to write a book, then pick up a pen and
do it. And, if you want to run for president, then get started. It isn’t going to
happen if you plan your day around your favorite TV shows or spend hours
updating your Facebook page. These are entertaining distractions that eat up
your irreplaceable time.
I teach a course on creativity and innovation at Stanford University. During a
workshop on how to brainstorm, I often give the following prompt: There
aren’t enough hours in a day. Come up with creative solutions to this
dilemma. The brainstorming results in an endless list of solutions—from the
practical to the preposterous—demonstrating that there are lots of ways to
extract more from each hour, each day, and each year. Some of the most
interesting solutions involve figuring out how to do two things at once. I know
many people who have successfully incorporated this approach into their own
lives.
For instance, I met a woman named Audrey Carlson several years ago who was
struggling to figure out how to spend time with her friends and take care of her
growing family. She started a group called “Chop and Chat.” Every Sunday, six
friends got together to cook at a member’s home. Each member brought the
ingredients to make a different recipe that was then split into six portions.
Members took home six different main courses for the week. Chop and Chat
was an inventive way for the women to cook together, socialize, and prepare
meals for their families.
Another example is venture capitalist Fern Mandelbaum. You would assume
that meetings with Fern take place in her office … and you’d be wrong. Fern is
an avid athlete and her meetings take place on hiking paths. Everyone who
knows Fern knows to wear walking shoes and carry a bottle of water to their
meetings in anticipation of a strenuous hike. Fern finds that this strategy is a
great way to get to know each entrepreneur while also getting exercise.
There is an oft-quoted saying that "time is money." You can interpret this to
mean that time is a valuable currency. In fact, each day another 24 hours is
deposited into each of our “bank accounts.” We get a choice about how to spend
these hours. We decide how much we spend right away, how much gets
invested for the future, and how much we give away. The worst choice is to
waste these hours by letting them slip away.
It is almost noon, and I have 12 more hours to invest today!
