You’ve read & heard a lot of theory about how value of time is more than money. But do you practically follow it. Probably not. Because the hustlers have barked it out so many times, the powerful words lost its value.
Imagine a rich person walking down the street & throwing out ₹2000 notes. You’ll think that person is crazy right? But probably it’s something you’re doing with your time.
Spending your time doing nothing is same as spending your money without getting anything.
And it’s always clever to outsource things which you are not good at or not enjoy doing starting from domestic chores to professional tasks & spend that time doing what you’re really good at & enjoy.
Ok, so time is more valuable than money, but how do you calculate your time’s value & make it work for you ?
How to calculate your value of time?
If you value time, then probably you’re looking for long time achievements, not short time gains. Suppose you’re 20 years now & in the next 10 years you want to earn ₹5,00,000 a month. So, you time’s value for a month is ₹10,00,000. If we break it down, it would be like this
- 1 month = ₹5,00,000
- 1 day = ₹5,00,000/25 = ₹20,000 (assuming you work for 25 days a month)
- 1 hour = ₹20,000/₹10 = ₹2,000 (assuming you work for 10 hours a day)
So, your value for 1 hour is ₹2,000 & for a day is ₹20,000.
Now suppose you have ₹20,000 in your purse & you get pickpocketed. How do you feel? How many days you remember it? How hard you feel the pinch?
But do you feel the same pinch when you waste 1 day worth ₹20,000. Probably not. Because you don’t have a vision for your future & don’t care where you want to be 10 years later.
Whereas if you have a vision about where you want to be in the next 10 years or so, & whether you would be able to turn that into reality or not, depends how properly you utilize your time today.
Suppose you will start a business & you have limited capital. Now how your business will perform depends on how wisely you invest the capital or you waste it. The same works with time as well. Let’s say the next 10 years is your capital, & how you invest your time will dictate where you’ll be after 10 years.
We are taught to value money, not time, whereas you can always earn your money back provided you utilize that time properly. But you won’t get back your time.
But what if I can make you feel that, you’ve actually wasting your money if you’re wasting your time. Would you be cautious to save that money?
What if you feel the same pinch when you waste 1 hour as if you lost ₹2,000 of money. Would you waste a hour after that from next time. No. Because you’ll get that same pinch as if you lost ₹2,000.
If you waste your day, you’re losing ₹20,000. Can you afford to waste this amount of money. If not, then how can you afford to waste this much time which is worth that amount of money.
What if it becomes a habit that everytime you waste a hour or day, the time’s worth actually pinches you hard as if you wasted real money.
You will stop wasting your time right, because everytime you waste your time, it will pinch you hard as if you’ve wasted your money. And we are already taught the value of money very well.
You’ll stop keeping pending tasks aside to complete just before the deadline, you’ll stop putting up tasks for tomorrow, because you know your value of today’s time & there will be a sense of urgency to get the value out of that time.
If you look back & calculate how much time you’ve wasted or you will waste if you don’t value time now, it’s worth Crores.
This is just a sample calculation, do you own calculation & find out your time’s value & can you afford to burn it or not.
Now what I want you to do is, suppose
Peter is a 26 yr. old guy. He goes to bed at 10pm & wakes up at 6am. So
- Sleep – 8 hrs.
- Available time in a day – 16 hrs.
Now 16 hrs. is a lot of time. He was asked to divided this 16 hrs. into small chunks of 1 hr. and/or 30 mins. He was told to fill those 30 mins/1 hr. chunks with the tasks he usually does for a whole day. It can be the same task continuing to the next chunk or start a different task.
The first time he looked at it, he was surprised to see he has so much time in a day that he struggled to fill up those chunks of time & wondered about so much time he usually wastes doing nothing & without any calculation of how his time he had utilized. His table looked something like this
1 hr. chunks
| Video Games | Consuming Entertainment Content | Personal care (meals, shower, personal hygiene, etc.) | Social Media | Social Media | Commute to work | Domestic Chores |
| Work | Work | Work | Work | Work | Breaks at Work (including lunch, coffee breaks, free time, chats) | Breaks at Work (including lunch, coffee breaks, free time, chats) |
30 mins. chunks
| Video Games | Reading books | Consuming Informative & Educational Content | Gym |
That totals 16 hrs.
He found that majority of the chunks he had filled were mostly useless activities for him like playing video games, consuming entertainment content, spending time on social media, too much time spent on personal care(meals, shower, personal hygiene, etc.), & very less time on reading books, consuming informative & educational content, working on his goals, workout, personal development, self care, etc.
He tried to cut off time on useless activities & replace those chunks or allot that time to more productive tasks. Now his table looks something like this
1 hr. chunks
| Reading books | Reading books | Social Media | Personal care (meals, shower, personal hygiene, etc.) | Consuming Informative & Educational Content | Produce & Edit Content | Gym | |
| Work | Work | Work | Work | Work | Work | Breaks at Work (including lunch, coffee breaks, free time, chats) | Commute to work |
30 mins. chunks
| Domestic Chores | Produce & Edit Content |
It was really hard for him to give up video games & online streaming shows, but something else looked more important.
He was asked to start recording how he spends his chunks from the next day & actively track his time. The act of him supervising himself will change the way he actually does his tasks. Because he will be watching himself now in the eyes of a supervisor & he has his time allotted for each tasks clearly, so instead of killing his time, he will instruct himself to get back to finish the allotted task & take wise decisions because he knows someone is watching him, himself.
Next he is asked to tell about the most important goal right now that he wants to achieve in the next few weeks/months. After he chose a goal, he was asked how much extra time do he needed to allot in a day for completing that task & accomplish that goal.
His small chunks are now filled with more productive tasks than before & he found it difficult to take out time from them & allot that time to his most important goal now.
And that’s what happens, we say that this is the most important goal now & we want to accomplish it, but we fake ourselves to stay busy & are not willing to allot any time to it or sacrifice more on things that are not that necessary.
I’d recommend you to create a similar chart for the weekend as well & keep more room for personal development stuffs.
Now, I hope you implement this stuff now, immediately before you forget it & use your time with full awareness, under your own supervision.
Let me know what’s your value of time & what your chunks consist of in the comments below.