Life is finite — what have you done about it?
What’s your time worth? I’ve been reading a lot about the value of time lately.
I have almost finished Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life. He makes a good case for wisely using our ridiculously short time on earth without obsessing about trying to do everything.
“The real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things,” says Oliver Burkeman.
Many people underrate how much time they have but complain about having little time. They don’t respect time until it’s too late.
“You can do so much in ten minutes’ time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity,” says Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA.
24 hours is long enough if you can put it into good use. If you can invest it like you would your money, you will be on a better trajectory in life.
What are you up to in the next 30 minutes? Is that investment of time in your control? How will you account for the next half an hour? When you spend the next 24 hours, will you have something meaningful to show for it?
Life is fleeting and finite. The good news is, you don’t have to fit everything into your schedule. You can focus on the essential things that count or help you become a better version of yourself.
Only by confronting how you spend your time can you measure how you spend your life. Wisdom is knowing what gets your attention or how to spend your focus wisely.
Life-changing wisdom is knowing how to become time savvy. If you were paid in time rather than money, would you aim to become a time billionaire?
Time billionaire is a phrase coined by Graham Duncan. It means someone with at least a billion seconds to live, provided they live until 79 years (the average human life). If you don’t have a billion seconds to live, you can at least aim to become a time millionaire.
The value of time only becomes evident when you have no time left to spend. Many people spend a lot of time accumulating money only to realise they don’t have quality time for memorable life experiences.
If you have the rare opportunity to invest in memorable life adventures or events, take it. If you want to invest time right now to earn enough to support yourself, go for it.
But remember, time is finite. A better option is to schedule meaningful experiences on your calendar now, instead of waiting for retirement to spend time right.
Real wealth is how you spend your time
A time millionaire is greater than a dollar millionaire.
Many dollar billionaires aim to buy back time for life-changing experiences they missed whilst they were busy investing all their time building wealth.
Time millionaires are the real wealthy people. They have more than enough life to slowly invest in things they care about.
“A billion seconds is just over 31 years. The 20 year old has two billion seconds. The 50 year old has one billion seconds. Take a step back today and ask yourself — do I invest my capital based on the greatest resources that I have access to?” writes Anthony Pompliano of The Pomp Letter.
I would rather be a time billionaire now than in the future. What would you rather have? A billion dollars or a billion seconds?
You could argue that a billion dollars can buy you time. Yes, but at what cost? A billion seconds can build wealth if you know how to invest it wisely.
I aim to protect my time like a healthy portfolio. It’s about time you started questioning how you spend your time, money, attention or focus?
If you are too busy to take stock of your time investment slowly, you will end up on the wrong path in life.
In our productivity-obsessed world, real and meaningful projects/work are treated as side hustles. Why hustle on the side when you could make it your life? Doing what brings out the best in you every day is the ultimate life goal. If you can have that right now, pursue it with all your might.
What would you do differently if money was no object? How would you spend your life? Use that list to choose your priorities in life.
“Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way. And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually turn it — you could eventually become a master of it,” says Alan Watts.
What do you truly desire? Build your life around it and make that life unapologetically yours. To win the time paradox game in life, think of time as a finite asset: a resource you lose every passing day. And be insanely frugal with your time.
Choose to become a time millionaire or billionaire today. Invest in ideas and tools that will help you experience life to the fullest.
Aim for a good balance of work and meaningful experiences. Time is the most significant goal for true time millionaires. You can make more money, but you can’t reacquire time.
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Previously Published on Medium
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