Everyone has or has had someone in their lives lecture them about time and how it flies by. Whether it be grandma or grandpa, mom or dad, or whoever else, this point must not be taken lightly. Time is a gift and the most valuable asset known to mankind for one simple reason, you can’t get it back. If you lose money you can make it back, if you lose your job you can get another one, just about anything you think of you can replenish in some way. This is not the case with time. Each person is allotted a specific amount of time on this planet which is completely out of our control. The only thing that we can do as human beings is make the most of our time, down to every minute. Good tips to time management will go a long way to help.
A “good use of time” varies from person to person depending on one’s values. It is very easy for us to waste time, and as a matter of fact most people spend the majority of their lives doing it. Too many times I’ve heard people say “Oh I wish I could go see Italy” or “I wish I could get out of work so I can spend time with my kids”. This to me is blasphemous! You have one life. All you need in today’s day in age to make a living is a WIFI connection and you have access to almost anything you can think of. Don’t spend 40 years of your life sitting in a cubicle 9-5 Monday through Friday every week at a job you hate. As a person close to me likes to say “We should all live our lives with oh wells instead of what ifs”. What this means is that if you want to do something you should do it regardless of what common groupthink might guide you into doing. Too many people spend their time saying to themselves what if I had done this or what if I had the time to do that when the truth is, we are on limited time here on this earth! Do what you want to do, be with who you want to be with, see what you want to see, and don’t look back! You don’t want to look back on life with regrets and what ifs. A life of oh wells means you’ve fulfilled your life dreams, and used your time wisely like the asset it is.
It is quite common in the United States for young parents to have their kids raised by babysitters due to financial needs and the notion of financial stability that is supposed to come with having a steady 9-5 job. This limits the time they have to spend with their kids, and they may miss important moments in their childhood like walking or talking for the first time. This example actually applies to me. When I first walked my dad was at work and missed it. He was providing for his family which is what anyone would want to do, but I’m sure he would have loved to have had the time to see me take my first steps. To free up the asset of time, I’ve learned some basic principles that I will now share with you. First off, limit spending and create a budget plan. This does not mean deprive yourself of things that bring joy, it just means to question if you really want something or not before you buy it. Ask yourself how many much time you sacrificed to earn the money you are now spending on that item. If you think of currency as time instead of money, you are less likely to waste it. Those 100-dollar shoes you see on sale that you don’t really want or need will seem a lot less appealing when you realize it took you 8 hours of time to make that 100 dollars. For some people, this is an entire day’s worth of work blown on something they don’t want or need. The number of times I see people buy expensive things, bring them home, put them on the shelf, and forget about them is astonishing. I try to never make glamorous purchases anymore and limit my spending on things that truly bring me joy such as my gym membership, or things that will generate me passive income like stocks, rather than the hot new item on sale. If you apply the simple concept of thinking of currency in units of time instead of the paper dollar, you are sure to spend less of it on things you could go without.
Another thing that could and will free up time to do the things you want is to generate sources of passive income outside of the 9-5. There are so many options, blogging, amazon drop shipping, rental property investing, and house flipping are just some of the limitless potential sources of income one can create on the side. Side hustles generate wealth and cash flow which in turn allows for one to have more free time. This route requires patience and dedication to learn because it is necessary to build yourself up and you may not see the money coming in right away. It is important to stick with it and learn as you go so you don’t waste all your time learning about something but never actually getting to do it. This is a big-time waster. It is good to get a nice base and solid foundation of something before hopping into a side hustle, but the only way to really learn is to dive into it and experience the process for yourself. This is definitely intimidating, but the rewards can be freedom to use time in whatever way you may choose rather than slave away at a job lining someone else’s pockets and being told what to do.
The truth is, your boss wants you to stay and work for them rather than spend time doing what you want. They try to make you offers that you are told you are a fool if you decline. This is especially true with big corporations. My father worked for a big corporation in New York City. He made a great salary with great benefits; however, he traded his entire life away for it while he was working for that particular company. He sacrificed 12 hours a day commuting to the job the job he hated in order to make the salary deemed to be outstanding by common standards. When he wasn’t at work, he was recovering from work. This time tradeoff for money was not worth it for him after the time he put in along with his low quality of life. He was noticeably aging over a short period of time. My mother and I never saw him and when we did, he was too tired to do anything. This example is to show you that your job probably doesn’t have your best interests in mind, regardless of your salary. To trade all of your time for money is a horrible return on investment because what do you really have. Sure, you need money, but there are ways to do that where you are your own boss. You control how you manage time based on your priorities and lifestyle, not your boss. Get creative, start the business you always wanted to, generate sources of passive income (as many as you can), and start seeing time for what it is, the greatest asset known to mankind. I was fortunate enough to be able to open my father’s eyes to this, and now we run an online business together which we are just getting on track, while he now works a 9-5 that is much more manageable for him. We now spend a lot of time together, and his overall quality of life has improved due to his ability to use his time in more ways that he wants. This is something everyone should strive for. After all time is currency and once it’s gone, it’s gone forever so you must make the most of it while you can.