It’s funny: the people I hear who say, “Time is money,” the most are often the people who seem to complain about never having either.
It’s a bit of a throwaway statement, but if you really follow it, there’s some truth to it; although I prefer to think of it more as “Time is happiness.”
Your Money or Your Life
I rarely latch on to books that were suggested to me with a certain degree of hype. Friends swore to me that I’d love Getting Things Done, but it seemed like too busy a system for me. Others have recommended books about making money, but money has never been a motivating factor in my life beyond essentials. (The people who recommend those kinds of books to me are often the people chasing one get-rich-quick scheme to the next.) Somewhere along the way, somebody recommended Your Money or Your Life to me.
Like most non-fiction books I read, it seemed padded. I’d rather have a 100-page book that matters than a 100 good pages and another 150 pages of padding so it seems like a book. Your Money or Your Life was no exception to me, but it was still the book that put into words what I always believed: that there’s a lot to be said for putting a monetary value on your time
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The quick version: is it really worth three hours in traffic 5 days a week, having to buy designer clothes, and deal with maintenance on a vehicle just to make an extra $15,000 – $20,000 a year? I know people who drive from one side of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex to the other every day, work overtime, and have little more to show for it than a state of exhaustion. Why not figure out what an hour of your life is worth in a dollar amount (the books suggests ways to figure this out), and take a closer look at what you might be throwing away.
Time Is More Than Money
To me, at a certain point, time is worth more than money. Once I have enough to survive and do something cool now and then, time to do things like writing this blog entry is worth more than time in traffic to be able to say I make $20K more than I currently make. When you factor in the time in traffic, wear in tear on a vehicle, and the effect on one’s health from always being on the go, the extra money isn’t worth it to me. I have time to maintain a couple blogs, do a weekly podcast, and still spend time with my wife and other people I care about.
While a little bit more money would be nice, it’s not worth trading the time I have. As a tech writer, I know I can make more than I do, but right now I work at the best job I’ve ever had. I work from home a couple days a week, my commute is roughly 5 miles to a neat office complex in the country, and I like everyone I work with. (No office politics — just cool people!)
I recently had to reschedule maintenance on a car bought in May because it still hasn’t seen the mileage necessary for maintenance. The dealership seemed surprised that in 3 months, the car’s only seen 1700 miles. There was a time I would have put 3700 miles on a vehicle in that same amount of time…
A Different Outlook
Once I really started looking at how lucky I’ve been to usually have time for things, I viewed little things so much differently. I won’t spend an hour on the phone with a billing department arguing a $10 charge and getting stressed when I can go for a walk with my wife in that time. Why spend an hour (or more) each day getting worked up and arguing with people online when you can use that time to write a novel, build something cool in your garage, or see someone you love? Why watch hours of news that’s not really news when the time can be spent in a more relaxing manner?
Maybe you really like arguing on the phone, online, or getting worked up about some news story that really has no direct bearing on your life, but I’ve known few people who genuinely like those things. We’re all different, and free to do what we want with the time we have, but once I respected my time more, I found myself cutting things out that made me feel buried. And because of that, I found even more time for the things I like doing — even if it’s spending an hour doing nothing at all.
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