Why You Need to Value Your Time More
By: Brandon Tumblin
Tags: Philosophy, Time, Self Improvement, Time Management, Productivity

I’ve always been fascinated (and slightly annoyed) when I hear people making the excuse of “I don’t have the time” or “I am so busy”. For one, it seems to roll off the tongue for many people, as if it’s an excuse that is built within us. Perhaps on some level, that is true.

However, what (slightly) annoys me about this is that everyone has the same 24 hours a day. Isn’t it rather funny then how we all seem to be under the misconception that some things we simply don’t have the time for?

I’m going to explore this further later, but first I want to start with a brief explanation of what time really is.

Time is essentially a measure of the length of our existence. Put that way, it seems rather depressing, but that doesn’t make it any less true. You see, how much time we have really refers to how much life we have. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) we do not know how much time we really have in this life, and so, though useful in some circumstances, it is best to not dwell on it too much.

However, what we can know without a doubt is how much time we assign to each day. Based on our solar system, humanity as divided the time from which the earth rotates one revolution. We call this “one day” or “24 hours”.

Again, we have no way of knowing if we are guaranteed another day, week, month, of year, however, we essentially must make this assumption out of both practicality and to ensure we are making proper sacrifices today to make our future better.

For example, if you put in an 8 hour work day, you are sacrificing your time with the assumption that you will live long enough to at least make use of your next pay check. If you were not to make this assumption, you would either not go to work or demand payment at every hour!

The obvious question to such a realization is: at what length of time should we assume we will live?

Of course, that depends on many, many factors, but the life expectancy in your area is probably a good start. This is why we all set a retirement age with this age in mind (which is actually reflected in the old age pension, if your country has it). That topic is a few blog posts of its own, so I won’t be diving too deep into that today.

However, what should be clear is that:

We only have so much time in our “bank” We all have the same 24 hours a day We must assume we have a future, or else the present is meaningless

The analogy in point 1 about our time being in our “bank” is not only a metaphor; in fact, it’s very much true. You see, since we only have a finite amount of time — it is quantifiable, though we have no way of quantifying it — we can see time as life’s currency.

Again, this isn’t a metaphor; it is true.

The great thing about life is that we can actually choose how we spend our currency; our time. We get to choose. This is why the excuse of “I don’t have the time” is actually rather ridiculous. You do have the time; you are simply choosing to spend it on something else.

It is like saying you don’t have the money for the new PlayStation when you’ve just bought the new Xbox. You do have the money, but you are choosing to spend it on something else.

What’s interesting is that there are many financial advisors who suggest thinking about the things you buy, not in how much money it costs, but rather in how much time is costs. For example, if you wish to buy something that costs $100 and you make $10 per hour, then that item costs 10 hours of your life.

Of course, your income isn’t fixed, but it does provide us with a true (yet sometimes disturbing) way of thinking about life’s currency of time.

What I have realized from analyzing time in this sense is that what you spend your time on is what kills you. Another way of thinking about this is what you do kills you.

That, my friends, is a beyond haunting thought, but is nevertheless true.

As opposed to using that thought as worsening your existential crisis, I would rather suggest you use it to take your time seriously, and hopefully to stop wasting it. Find something to do that is worth your life.

Is scrolling through Facebook worth your life? What about staying angry about someone cutting you off on the road? How much time are you wasting? An hour a day, or 7 hours a week, or 365 hours a year? That’s 9 full 40-hour work weeks a year by the way.

As you can see, thinking about time in this regards can perhaps make you value your time more and use it to pursue a more meaningful life.

And if you ever feel overcome with life’s burden and don’t know what to do, remind yourself of this wonderful quote from The Lord of the Rings:

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.