Aug 13th, 2008
Does Equating Time and Money Help Your Time Management?
I’ve been watching and rewatching (well, more like listening to and relistening to) the late, great, Dr. Randy Pausch’s videos, both the well known Last Lecture as well as his presentation shortly thereafter on time management. One of the points he makes is that in America, we’re really good at thinking of money as a commodity (but concedes that not all Americans are all so great at doing so when he states, “that’s what makes the credit card industry possible.”) but not so good at thinking of time as a commodity when it’s even more of a precious resource: once you’ve spent time on something, you’ll never be able to get that time back to do something else. On the other hand, you can always make more money.
If we start considering time as money, will we get better at managing it?
Some ideas:
Doing things at the last minute is very expensive: Pausch uses the example of being able to use the United States Postal Service rather than FedEx if your package doesn’t need to be there overnight, because it’s much cheaper. But it’s not just expensive in the monetary sense to do things at the last minute. If you wait until time is running out, things must go a lot closer to perfect in order for them to work out–a consultant out sick or on vacation for a day or two can really be a huge issue when time is running out. You can also only really do one thing at one time and if something really urgent comes up, whatever you’re doing may be pushed to the side again!
Putting time into things early on can pay off in the long run: advance planning always helps in the long run. Figuring out things like a budget or a shopping list can save both money and time. Not being prepared can make what would be a difficult situation impossible. Think about putting a little time into planning your day, your finances, your expenditures, your retirement–so you can deal with these things better later.
Time really can be your money’s best friend: The longer you have to invest, the more compounding interest and returns can help you out! Don’t put these things off–the longer you wait, the more you’ll miss out. Wise use of time, planning, and prioritizing can make a tremendous difference in how you deal with both money and time. Remember we don’t try to manage our time better so we can become harder working workaholics (aside from a certain blogger); we manage our time better so we can spend more time with the people we love and doing the things we love.
Try to consider the way you use your time and how time is like money, as well as how poor use of time costs you money; this might be the mindset necessary to do a better job with both!
Great post Ryan! Dr. Pausch was a amazing person and I wish everyone would watch his speeches on YouTube.
I agree time invested up from save time and money. Here is an example. Recently a client told me he was about to paint a few rooms in his house. He wasn’t looking forward to it as last time it was a major hassle, took much more time that he expected and caused friction in the house because it wasn’t done. I discovered that he didn’t plan ahead - nor at he planned for the upcoming painting. Just one example was that he went to the hardware store 4 times during the painting process to get things he had forgotten. His upcoming painting job is now planned, including prioritising which rooms to do first in case he doesn’t get it all done. Sounds simple. Maybe. This person is a very intelligent successful businessman.