subject: Ultimate Lifestyle Design: How Are You (wasting) Spending Your Time? [print this page] As an avid Lifestyle Design fanatic, I have to admit, I have been bugging all of my Facebook and twitter friends about this topic. I ask them, Which would you rather have? Time or Money? To which 99% reply, theyd rather have more TIME.
So my follow up question is, What is standing in the way of your ability to get more TIME? To which they all respond: Money or My Job. So it seems to me that most people draw the conclusion that inevitably TIME = MONEY. But is this really true?
Retiring
As I write this post, my wonderful father will be retiring in less than a week after having served the phone company for most of his adult life, 39 years to be exact. Started as a lineman and worked his way up into important management positions. I am so proud of my dad for making the decision to retire. They are financially secure and will have their house paid off in less than 2 months! A monumental undertaking!
I said to him, You know, youre the last of a dying breed. He acknowledged and said that not many who retire after him will be receiving a pension and excellent benefits. This represented a major turn in our countrys work history going from Defined Benefits (Pensions) to Deferred Contributions (401Ks and the like). I guess my dad was one of the lucky ones, but he certainly did sacrifice a lot to get to this reward. But I do also know that part of him is terrified, not because of the money, but NOW, what does he do with his TIME??
What will be my reason to wake up in the morning?
Kenz, [my dads nickname for me] I just dont know what my reason for waking up in the morning will be if I dont go to work. Ugh! Just pulls at my heart strings, and of course, I mention 101 things he could do aside from he and my mother trying to kill each other for spending too much time together.
Retirement depression is so common among new retirees, that AARP addresses this issue on their website. Part of me is fearful that my dad will end up one of these statistics. These are some of the things that they mention that can curb retirement depression:
What do I want to do? (Go back to school? Be a gourmet cook or master gardener? Start your own business?)
Who do I want to do it with?
What resources do I have?
What resources would be available in a new community if I choose to relocate?
How can I make this happen?
Now hold on a second When I read this list, I was flabbergasted!! Why are we not doing this NOW? Why dont we ask ourselves these very reflective questions today? Do we have to wait until we retire old to ask ourselves these questionsespecially this one: How can I make it happen?
Opportunity Cost
I recently read a great book by a wonderful Author, Tisa L. Silver, MBA entitled The Time Value of Life. Tisa was an esteemed finance professor at the University of Delawares Alfred E. Lerner College of Business and Economics, and unlike many professors, takes a different (read: refreshing) approach in her view on money. In her book, she looks at several factors that play into the time value of money and then also explains why our time is so precious.
I obviously agree with her argument that, money is a renewable resource and time is not, Time can be spent but only money can be replaced (Silver). And one interesting concept that relates to both time and money is Opportunity Cost. In money terms, if you invest in a bond or other investment, youre giving up your money for a certain period of time for someone to use it, and you forfeit any other benefit that you may have received by using that money in other investments (or to spend on yourself).
Time works the same way. There is an opportunity cost to time. When we spend our time being angry we are forfeiting our time that we could be using being joyous, happy, silly, or even indifferent. Even more deliberate than that, when we choose to spend our time doing what we feel is an obligation rather than a choice; we forfeit our time to do what we choose.
So there are choices with how you spend your time, every minute you spend holds an opportunity cost. Where and how are you spending your opportunity minutes?
If Onlys and Once Is
Do you do this? Do you wish for something so badly and then once you get it, the result did not make you feel the way you thought it would?
Silver calls these fallacy statements, I call them If Onlys and Once Is. We have all been victim of these statements. I remember my husband early in our marriage would say, Once I become a police officer then everything will be alright, and Ill be happyfinally. Take a guess at what happened. Yep, he was the same person, no more or less happy!
Do you say this to yourself?
Once I get that really nice sports car, then Ill feel good about myself.
If only I had more money then Id be happier.
Once the kids get older, then Ill have more free time.
Fallacy statements do not allow us to spring into action, instead we wait for the perfect timing of an occurrence, or we wait for the occurrence to happen to us rather than go after it. We give up our power to be present in the NOW when we use fallacy statements. We would rather focus on wishful future events, rather than appreciate what we have in front of us.
How DO you Trade your Time?
I know what is true for me that I make a horrible employee, and prefer entrepreneurship. But I know a lot of people that LOVE their jobs and they make great employees, this is how they choose to trade their time, for money, and I think that is wonderful! I am not in the business to tell people to quit their jobs.
For these, the opportunity cost is a fair trade. They love what theyre spending their time doing at work, and gladly collect money for doing it. In fact, time seems to breeze by, they feel free in their life, and they dont necessarily feel their time is being sucked dry.
There are, however, far more people that are miserable, hate their jobs and the opportunity trade off does not seem fair in their book. So then what?
The Timing is Never Right
You have options about how to spend your time, good and bad. If youre spending it in a way that is not consistent with a fair opportunity trade, then you have a choice to change it. Sometimes it seems impossible, but you do have choices.
One of my favorite reads, The Four Hour Work Week, by Timothy Ferriss, tackles this very issue of deciding when the time is right. He describes the time he asked his mother about how she timed when she would have a baby, to which his mother responded, We figured we would do it at some point, the timing is never perfect to have a baby.
I can certainly attest to this oneand not just one baby, two! My older son was a surprise package when we least expected him, and our younger son came right before I was starting our mega venture business. The timing was so wrong for both of them, but if I waited until it was right, I likely would have no kids!! Yet I survived and realized that my worst case scenarios never usually manifest.
So with this in mind, are you waiting for perfect conditions to change? Are you waiting for someone else to tell you what to do you get your act in gear? You can do it the Band-Aid method, make it fast, and let it hurt for a few minutes until the stinging stops. Or like jumping into a cold pool, it is numbingly shocking, but then you warm up to it.
Every Day Opportunities
While my dad was one of the lucky ones to retire with a pension, he sacrificed a lot of time to get him to where he is at today. In fact my mom will argue that he was a work-a-holic. He did not know any different, it was in his programming. He is now faced with a totally foreign challenge, and that is to learn to have, do or be what he loves! Yet, what he did not realize all a long, is that he could have chosen that path every day!!
Which path are you on? One that misuses your opportunity cost? Or one to HAVE, DO and BE whatever you desire?
