A LESSON FROM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
We can no more afford to spend major time on minor things than we can to spend minor time on major things.
Our three most precious commodities:
1) Time
2) Money
3) Personal Productivity (energy)
Do you jump out of bed each morning with a plan, feeling excited about what lies ahead for your day? Or do you watch the clock hands tick by and wonder where all that time goes?
It is all too easy to feel that if we are not busy working on some project or urgent thing to do, we are wasting time.
How we perceive time has a mighty effect on our priorities. If we have a high priority on money for instance, then we will be driven to be more productive to try and use our time as effectively as possible in keeping with the phrase ‘time is money’.
What is the price tag on time?
If we live by the above phrase, then we will indeed be giving currency to time. How does that affect our confidence and self-value? This can lead to rating our self-worth by how productive we perceive that we are. This can have some real negative implications for us:
If I earn $100 per day and you earn $1000, then I must be worth 90% less than you are. If I take this mindset on, then I will feel inferior and lose productivity, and change the way in which I feel about myself.
If we live on the premise that ‘time is money’ then we put the caregiver who gives up their job to look after a loved one, or a mother or person with a disability that stops them from earning greater financial income on the bottom of the pile, while an arrogant, high-flying executive who makes money at the expense of others at the top of the pile. Does this sound like a social value system that you would like to support?
If time is not money then what is it?
In a sense, Ben Franklin had it right when he associated time with currency; he just chose the wrong one. You see, the value of money is tiny compared to the value of time, even though making a living does require that we spend some of our valuable time in that pursuit.
When we spend our valuable time we should view it as something that far exceeds the worth of money. Yes, it takes a certain amount of money to care for our material needs and wants, but that is just one, small aspect of life.
And this brings us to the real point of this article.
Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you can't get more time. - Jim Rohn
Time is the currency of life.
Some will argue that time is a concept created by man and that it really doesn’t exist. All I can say to that is – what happens to your life when you run out of time? See my point? We only have so much of this valuable commodity and when it’s gone all the money in the world can’t buy you more.
Here’s where a proper view of productivity can help. If our level of productivity allows us to care for our material needs while only spending half as much time doing so, then from a practical standpoint, we have actually gained a lot of time for other pursuits. In fact, isn’t that what’s behind the intellectual draw toward increased productivity? In a nutshell, more money in less time means more time doing what we want.
Keep your balance and avoid the traps.
The real challenge here is to use increased productivity in a balanced way so we reap the benefits and avoid the pitfalls. Creating greater earning potential so we can spend more time doing other things will likely require a period of focus and dedication. Once our efforts begin to pay off we need to avoid the following traps.
- Getting obsessed with earning more and more.
- Allowing super productivity to become an obsession.
- Forgetting why we chose this course to begin with.
- Slipping into the ‘time is money’ mindset.
- Enslaving ourselves by continually increasing our spending.
- Thinking that more income changes our worth as a person.
- Endlessly trading the currency of life for mere money.
A synergistic approach
In life, there is either synergy, or there is conflict. The secret to avoiding conflict is to harmonise life’s many aspects so that they exist in a balanced and synergistic relationship with one another. What is required to maintain that harmonious balance?
We need to keep the big picture in view and not allow ourselves to become hypnotised by the seductive lure of money. Our precious time is the real commodity of life. Recognising its immense value will help us to spend it wisely.
As someone who has always enjoyed having several projects on the go, I have found it an important skill to be able to harness my thoughts and ideas. Mind mapping was the skill for me that changed the way I did things. By using diagrams to show a lot of information plainly and easily, I was able to create prompters that made my mind a lot more efficient. If you would like to learn more about mind mapping, then you can go to our ‘resources’ section of our website to download our free gift to you; 4u2xplore Mind Mapping workbook.
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant busyness. - Henry David Thoreau