Time—The Most Valuable Resource
Time is the currency of the world, and one of our most important governing laws. Literally, everything takes time. How much time is the post going to take me? Only time will tell.
I used to think my parents were crazy, just doing the parent thing, when they said, "Seems like it was only yesterday when you____." Or "has it really been ___ years since that happened?" And man it always drove me crazy when they'd say that kind of stuff. But as my senior year of high school rolled around, time began to really pick up speed. The days got shorter and shorter and shorter, or so it seemed. Next thing I knew, I was graduated. As college began, time seemed as if it were accelerating even faster. Then, I was slammed with the time warp of the MTC. Days suddenly became months and years. The minutes dragged dragged dragged on. Nine weeks later I finally escaped to Korea and time began to pick up speed again. Since returning from my mission, time has been hurtling passed. Quicker, quicker, quicker, the days go by increasingly.
With the influx of time speed, I fear that I am running out of time. Not to say that I'm expecting to die in the near future or any such thing, but it doesn't feel as if I have enough time to complete all the things I hope to do over the remaining course of my life.
When you think about it, everything costs time. As annoying as the platitude "time is money" is, there's real merit to it. Money was created to assess the value of our time; to make time a more tradeable commodity. Allow me to demonstrate. It takes a farmer months to grow and harvest a crop. When you purchase the products of said crop, you are paying for the product, but you are also paying for the time the farmer put into that product. Everything takes time. Take movies: movies can take months to years to write, cast, direct, film, etc. We audience members are paid wages for our time spent working. When we go to a movie in the theater, you pay for a ticket. Say you make $10 an hour, and the ticket costs $10. You are paying one hour of your life for that ticket. But by watching the movie, you are also spending another 1.5-3hrs of your life on the movie. In effect, you are paying your $10 of time + time spent to the entire movie crew for the time they spent on the movie. Money is acting as a tangible and transferrable substitute for time spent.
Some people's time costs more than other's. We usually equate this by hourly wages or by a broader period of money earned over a specific amount of time. e.g. Charles makes $20/hr, Lebron James will make $153million over 4yrs. Just because one person's time costs more than another's does not mean that their time is more valuable. Monetarily yes, but an hour off of your life is an hour off of your life. The hour of life spent by a dying man is far more valuable than the $3,000 hour being spent by a business manager sitting in his office.
Time is incredibly important. How can you really measure the cost or worth of time? In most instances, I don't believe that you can. An interesting way to look at your life though is by taking your hourly wage and comparing it to products that you want or own. E.g. buying this $500 guitar will cost me ___ hours of my life. Scary to think about isn't it? How many hours of your life have you spent aimlessly perusing social media? So much can be gained, lost, or experienced in an hour, or even in a moment's time.
"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life"—Charles Darwin
I've become more and more careful with my time over the years. Not that I don't waste a lot of time myself. Unfortunately, all humans spend about 1/3 of their lives sleeping. That's a lot of time! It's necessary, but we're really not very efficient creatures. I gave up watching tv years ago—aside from watching world cup—because it's such a waste of time! However, others may consider it a valuable use of time; it's all relative. I think one of the most important things you can do is evaluate things by time. Everything takes time: falling in love, traveling, eating breakfast, working, learning, sleeping, entertainment/events, everything! The importance of finding the most valuable use of time is crucial.
Recently, I've been using time blocking. Time blocking is a scheduling method used by many of the world's top CEO's and executives. Elon Musk (among many others) is an example of a time blocker. Time blocking is the idea of planning out your entire day in timed intervals so that you can be more productive or efficient. I personally time block by 15-minute increments, though most events take longer than 15 min, that's just how I approach the schedule. Let me give examples of how I use time blocking. Here's a small section from my day yesterday (a Saturday morning):
8am-8:45am 8:45-9:00 9:00-9:30 9:30-10:00
Wakeup/breakfast Shave, Shower, Brush Teeth English Quiz Flashcards Psych 1010 test
10:00-10:30 10:30-11:45 11:45-Noon Noon-2pm Etc
English Grammar txtbk Psych 1100 txtbk Travel to lunch Lunch w/ friends
Of course, things don't always go exactly as planned. That day was particularly busy; usually, I try to add a few extra blank 15 min intervals in for overflow time. With the overflow time (if not needed), I'll start the next project, review something, take a breather, watch a short youtube clip (educational of course) or something along those lines. It's amazing what you can accomplish in a day by budgeting your time so rigidly. Due to implementing this style of strict time blocking, I'm now about a week ahead of all my class assignments. This allows me to actually make time on most weekends to have a large free time block for watching a movie, hang with friends, etc. It's not always easy, but so far I've really seen the benefits. Maybe you'll find some use applying it to your own schedule.
Time is really the most valuable item we possess. As I've said, everything has a time value and time price. Are you using your time wisely? Could you be making better use of it? What are the most important things to spend time on/with? No matter what you do the clock keeps ticking. Eventually, everybody's time runs out, so use yours wisely.
I used to think my parents were crazy, just doing the parent thing, when they said, "Seems like it was only yesterday when you____." Or "has it really been ___ years since that happened?" And man it always drove me crazy when they'd say that kind of stuff. But as my senior year of high school rolled around, time began to really pick up speed. The days got shorter and shorter and shorter, or so it seemed. Next thing I knew, I was graduated. As college began, time seemed as if it were accelerating even faster. Then, I was slammed with the time warp of the MTC. Days suddenly became months and years. The minutes dragged dragged dragged on. Nine weeks later I finally escaped to Korea and time began to pick up speed again. Since returning from my mission, time has been hurtling passed. Quicker, quicker, quicker, the days go by increasingly.
With the influx of time speed, I fear that I am running out of time. Not to say that I'm expecting to die in the near future or any such thing, but it doesn't feel as if I have enough time to complete all the things I hope to do over the remaining course of my life.
When you think about it, everything costs time. As annoying as the platitude "time is money" is, there's real merit to it. Money was created to assess the value of our time; to make time a more tradeable commodity. Allow me to demonstrate. It takes a farmer months to grow and harvest a crop. When you purchase the products of said crop, you are paying for the product, but you are also paying for the time the farmer put into that product. Everything takes time. Take movies: movies can take months to years to write, cast, direct, film, etc. We audience members are paid wages for our time spent working. When we go to a movie in the theater, you pay for a ticket. Say you make $10 an hour, and the ticket costs $10. You are paying one hour of your life for that ticket. But by watching the movie, you are also spending another 1.5-3hrs of your life on the movie. In effect, you are paying your $10 of time + time spent to the entire movie crew for the time they spent on the movie. Money is acting as a tangible and transferrable substitute for time spent.
Some people's time costs more than other's. We usually equate this by hourly wages or by a broader period of money earned over a specific amount of time. e.g. Charles makes $20/hr, Lebron James will make $153million over 4yrs. Just because one person's time costs more than another's does not mean that their time is more valuable. Monetarily yes, but an hour off of your life is an hour off of your life. The hour of life spent by a dying man is far more valuable than the $3,000 hour being spent by a business manager sitting in his office.
Time is incredibly important. How can you really measure the cost or worth of time? In most instances, I don't believe that you can. An interesting way to look at your life though is by taking your hourly wage and comparing it to products that you want or own. E.g. buying this $500 guitar will cost me ___ hours of my life. Scary to think about isn't it? How many hours of your life have you spent aimlessly perusing social media? So much can be gained, lost, or experienced in an hour, or even in a moment's time.
"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life"—Charles Darwin
I've become more and more careful with my time over the years. Not that I don't waste a lot of time myself. Unfortunately, all humans spend about 1/3 of their lives sleeping. That's a lot of time! It's necessary, but we're really not very efficient creatures. I gave up watching tv years ago—aside from watching world cup—because it's such a waste of time! However, others may consider it a valuable use of time; it's all relative. I think one of the most important things you can do is evaluate things by time. Everything takes time: falling in love, traveling, eating breakfast, working, learning, sleeping, entertainment/events, everything! The importance of finding the most valuable use of time is crucial.
Recently, I've been using time blocking. Time blocking is a scheduling method used by many of the world's top CEO's and executives. Elon Musk (among many others) is an example of a time blocker. Time blocking is the idea of planning out your entire day in timed intervals so that you can be more productive or efficient. I personally time block by 15-minute increments, though most events take longer than 15 min, that's just how I approach the schedule. Let me give examples of how I use time blocking. Here's a small section from my day yesterday (a Saturday morning):
8am-8:45am 8:45-9:00 9:00-9:30 9:30-10:00
Wakeup/breakfast Shave, Shower, Brush Teeth English Quiz Flashcards Psych 1010 test
10:00-10:30 10:30-11:45 11:45-Noon Noon-2pm Etc
English Grammar txtbk Psych 1100 txtbk Travel to lunch Lunch w/ friends
Of course, things don't always go exactly as planned. That day was particularly busy; usually, I try to add a few extra blank 15 min intervals in for overflow time. With the overflow time (if not needed), I'll start the next project, review something, take a breather, watch a short youtube clip (educational of course) or something along those lines. It's amazing what you can accomplish in a day by budgeting your time so rigidly. Due to implementing this style of strict time blocking, I'm now about a week ahead of all my class assignments. This allows me to actually make time on most weekends to have a large free time block for watching a movie, hang with friends, etc. It's not always easy, but so far I've really seen the benefits. Maybe you'll find some use applying it to your own schedule.
Time is really the most valuable item we possess. As I've said, everything has a time value and time price. Are you using your time wisely? Could you be making better use of it? What are the most important things to spend time on/with? No matter what you do the clock keeps ticking. Eventually, everybody's time runs out, so use yours wisely.
Comments
Post a Comment