Why You Need To Value Your Time

“Remember that time is money.” Benjamin Franklin

As highlighted by our founding father: time does, indeed, fly. 

It wasn’t too long ago for when I was singing the Bob the Builder theme song and collecting toy cars.

For when I was playing my first YMCA basketball game and experiencing puppy love in elementary school.

For when I was stressing over AP exams and worrying about what my high school peers thought of me.

For when I was pregaming with the freshman dorm and skipping morning lectures to catch up on sleep.

It seemed like it was all yesterday, and although this phrase is overused, my youth really did fly right past me.

All of ours did.

There I am: collecting Pokemon cards and minding my own business–and the next thing you know–I’m then spit out into the real world. 

Looking back, I wasted so much time on trivial things, but everything changed once I accepted that my life is finite. 

At the beginning of this article, Benjamin Franklin compared time to money, and he’s spot on in this comparison–but time is more than just money: time is everything.

Literally.

Especially the time you have at this stage in your life. 

Say that your entire life is stretched out on a spectrum and that this spectrum is separated into increments of ten (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, etc.).

Now, which increment(s) would you say does your time matter the most in?

10–20 and/or 20–30.

The law of compounding interest implies that the earlier one starts saving, the more wealth he or she will accumulate in the future.

Now when one usually thinks of compounding interest, he or she would associate money with it–but the thing is that everything compounds and not just money: knowledge, career capital, skills, relationships, etc. 

What this means is that the earlier you start building, the larger these empires will be in the future. 

If Person X reads about investing for one hour every day starting at age 20, and Person Y starts at age 30, then who’s going to make more money via investing further down the road?

Replace “reads about investing” with any activity.

You, me, and Elon Musk all only have 24 hours in a given day, so why is this man shooting Teslas into space when we’re just trying to get by?

Time management.

Elon Musk has an insane work ethic, as he works every waking hour: he doesn’t waste his time on unproductive things, and he recognizes that he will die one day.

In fact, we’re all going to die one day.

I know right…

We all share one thing: death, and it’s not the most pleasant thing to think about.

But wait…There’s more!

We’re also deluding ourselves when we think that we actually get to experience 100% of our lives.

First of all, sleep takes at least a third of our time from us.

Then you have work and/or school which will take at least another third. 

So right there, we can only experience ~⅓ of our lives, and who knows how much of that is wasted on black screens…

Our lives are shorter than we think, yet here we are: scrolling away on Instagram and rewatching our favorite series on Netflix.

Accepting the fact that I’m going to die one day gives me that jolt of energy to get shit done, and I hope that this awareness does the same for you.

JL