What if I could give you more time?
Simple fixes to extending the time you are experiencing life
Every day we face the same dilemma; time or money. Sometimes this decision is obvious, and we consciously choose wisely. Most of the time, though, our unconscious mind is deciding for us, and usually, it’s wrong.
In the scope of a 24 hour day, time can seem endless or scarce. When we’re busy, we’ll furiously begin working at 8am, then when we get a break, we look up at the clock and see that it’s already noon. Where did the time go?! I still have so much work to do!
In that moment, it seems like we can’t get enough time. Looking at it from the other perspective. When we’re not busy, we’ll casually begin working at 8am, then when we’re bored enough to take a break, we look up at the clock and see that it’s only 8:30am. It’s only been 30 minutes?! I wish I had something to do.
We’ve all been there at least once. It seems time is always staring us in the face. It determines when we wake up, when we leave, when we start working, when we eat, when we stop working, when we meet with others, when we work out, when we sleep, and on and on and on. Time decides everything, but the funny thing is; we waste so much of it every single day.
Time is our scarcest commodity. More scarce than a bottle of 1945 Romanée-Conti. Because somebody somewhere probably has one stowed away for a rainy day, or it could be reproduced, or another wine could taste 100% identical, but when your time runs out, there’s no reproduction, that’s it.
Time is the unconscious commodity that we waste. When’s the last time you heard your colleague say they didn’t have enough time? Today, probably, but you will never hear them change anything. That is because we waste it trying to make money; an endless commodity. By make, I am including saving money by looking for a cheaper item, paying for a cheaper job then finishing the work on your own, or paying for a less expensive flight with more layovers giving you less time on vacation.
I get it. Sometimes you don’t have an option. Flights are very expensive, and not everyone can afford a housekeeper, but start by thinking small. We don’t realize it but our conscious mind takes up a lot of energy. Thinking about what we need to do or procrastinating our list of chores is distracting us and forcing us to multitask all our other more important activities.
In our every day lives, we are required to do many things. We must wash our car, walk our dog, paint the kitchen, do the laundry, cut the grass, cook dinner, pick the kids up from school, and remember to eat. That’s a lot of things to do. Some of them we may like to do, and for them, we probably have a schedule. Something like this: Monday wash the car, Tuesday take out the trash, Wednesday do laundry, etc. However, the things we dread doing we will procrastinate on.
We decided to paint the kitchen a month ago, but the untouched paint buckets are still stacked in the corner collecting dust. We are supposed to cut the grass every week, but we keep forgetting to buy gas. We should’ve cleaned the bathroom two months ago, but we never got around to it. We all have excuses for our least favorite tasks. That’s life.
The issue with this is every time you procrastinate you are causing mental stress that distracts you from doing other work and being productive. This can occur when you make it home from work and remember you have to go back out to get gas, or it could happen every time you get in the shower and see the mold growing. Any time this distraction occurs, it influences the way you experience your day and restricts you from issues that actually matter.
Outside of the distracting qualities of these activities, we lose time by doing the actual activity. This is time that takes away from doing things that we actually enjoy. Instead of mowing the grass, we could be reading. Instead of cleaning the bathroom, we could be spending time with friends.
These are things we don’t normally realize, and it spans much farther than household activities. We could pay for a Wall Street Journal subscription instead of spending time and energy searching for and reading lower quality articles. We could pay a landscaping company to mow the lawn every week, so we come back home to a well manicured lawn. This servicee accomplishes the chore and it makes us happy to see our home well taken care of.
We focus on the money aspect because our bank accounts and bills make it very clear how much we have and how much we need. What if we had an account that told us how much time we had? Then, would we change the way we lived?
Money is tight for a lot of people, so I understand this could be difficult for some. However, what if you switched from something like a daily coffee purchase to a housekeeper payment ($3/day * 5 days/week * 4 weeks/month = $60/month). That is $60 that could be put towards a housekeeper. Having that housekeeper would free up your weekends to do things that are more meaningful to you, so you are replacing one small source of happiness for one large one. If you don’t drink coffee, see if you partake in any other normal vice that could be replaced with more time.
I want you to walk away from this article and take a real look at what you spend your time doing. If you hate doing a chore, see if you can pay someone. It can make a much larger improvement on your life than you may realize because you aren’t just eliminating the time for that physical activity. You are also eliminating all the time you spend thinking about that activity which will open yourself up to many new opportunities.
Take a step back, look at what you like doing each week and what you dislike, and see if you can make any changes that can drastically improve your life.
Here are a few ideas I have or may implement in my life to improve my happiness:
- Paying for spotify premium because I strongly dislike advertisements between songs
- Paying for a wired and Barron’s subscription, so I am always getting quality articles without searching through hundreds of other articles and wasting my time
- Buying breakfast each morning rather than using the time to shop and cook
- Using a kindle so I always have my books with me and I don’t have to worry about fitting them into a stuffed backpack or forgetting one as I rush out the door
Areas where I decided to save money so I could partake in other activities:
- Drinking coffee at home every morning rather than going to starbucks
- Purchasing $9 plain t shirts from Uniqlo rather than unique graphic tees or button ups
- Always flying basic economy with a 40L backpack rather than having a carry on roller and premium seat
- Eating simple and cheap meals all week, so I can have an occasional phenomenal meal
This article was inspired by the HBR article Accounting for Time by Ashley Whillan and Hanne Collins. They go into excellent details that quantify the data that I have discussed here. Take a moment to read it. It’ll be worth your time! 😊
