I may not be a time management ninja, but I do think a bit about how to utilize my time. Time is the most precious asset at our disposal, but we don’t treat it accordingly. Would you spend your hard earned money buying useless low quality crap that will never bring any real value to your life? Would you flush money down the toilet? I think the answer is obvious.
But take a look at how so many of us spend our time and you’ll see that we probably could have used some time management lessons to go along with those 14 personal finance lessons that we never learned in school. We flush our time down the toilet on many pointless endeavors. Don’t get me wrong. I think some guilty pleasures are ok. My favorite TV show of all time was The OC. You might say I have the pop culture taste of a teenage girl. However, when people tell me they don’t have time for things I tend to be fairly unsympathetic because unlike money, time is something we all get an equal amount of. No matter who you are, you only have 24 hours in a day. But let’s take a look at how the average person manages time and how they can start to spend some of it on activities that have a higher ROI than watching 90210 (yes, I watch that too).
- Work: Work takes up the majority of our lives, which is why it’s extremely important to pay attention to those warning signs that you are about to end up in a job that you hate. A conservative estimate is that the average person works 8 hours a day. But let’s say you’re above average(which i’d assume anybody who reads my blog is), then you work 10 hours a day. That’s 50 hours a week. I’m sure there are many of you who work over 60 hours. More power to you.
- Sleep: Let’s say you sleep 8 hours every night. Assuming you have no major health issues or anything else going on, that should be sufficient. That’s 40 hours a week sleeping.
- Meals: If you cook, this might take a bit more time. But let’s allot 2 hours each day for all your meals which includes, breakfast, lunch and dinner. That’s 10 hours a week spent eating. I’m going to leave off the time spent on snacking, etc.
- Exercise: Most of you are not crazy like me and don’t average 3-4 hour surf sessions. So let’s say that you exercise 1 hour a day. That’s 7 hours a week.
This results is a 107 hours each week, which leaves you with roughly 61 hours every single week. That’s almost 3000 hours over the course of a year. The question you have to ask yourself now is exactly how you are spending that additional time? How much of it are you flushing down the toilet?
Taking Advantage of Necessary Evils
Commuting, running errands, and driving places to get things done is necessary. But that doesn’t mean it has to be completely useless time. I used to spend 3 hours a day in the car for my first job out of college. I could have mastered a foreign language or a number of other skills. Instead I mastered the use of four letter expletives. You spend quite a bit of time in your car each week. In fact, I’d recommend you do a little experiment. Keep track of just how much time you’re driving for one week. Then decide on some skill you want to learn, and turn your car into a classroom on wheels.
One of my friends has reached a rather dangerous point in his job. He’s getting paid well, is comfortable, and bored out of his mind. This is the point at which progress really comes to a halt. But the sad thing is that when he comes home from work he doesn’t have the motivation to work towards changing the situation. This is where our need for instant gratification gets us into real trouble. That need is so strong it keeps us from taking the first step and before we know it years have gone by.
Time is such a precious asset, one that I don’t think we place nearly enough value on it. Just remember that the saddest thing in life is wasted potential, which is often the byproduct of a poor use of time.
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I totally get this post Srinivas,
Time is more valuable than gold. With three kids in tow and trying to start up a business while we are living abroad in France, we are on a budget so i can't resort to my old tricks of hiring a nanny or house cleaner or giving the kids a 50 dollar bill to go and see a movie at their every whim. Every spare moment has been optimized to maximize my day and my time. I'll say one thing though, on my spreadsheet of life, i have a column labled family time and fun. It's crucial to making my life sustainable.
I still have my guilty pleasures and watch Dexter every week. I'm only human and need to waste a LITTLE time non?
Merry Christmas, hope Santa brings you lots of good tidings.
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