American society neglects time management. Businesses spend billions of dollars a year fighting each other over the attention span of the consumer. Furthermore, technology has ushered in an era of distraction where people spend countless hours on activities which provide zero lasting impact on their lives. Much like spending money on impulse purchases, we spend our time on impulse activities. Successful people don’t spend their time they invest their time.
Invest your time
What does it mean to invest your time? Thank you for asking 🙂 Investing time means actively, purposely, and consistently using time to obtain assets from which future value can be extracted. In other words, investing an hour of time could be reading a personal growth book or listening to a success podcast. This represents a tangible skill and growth in yourself that can pay you dividends for the rest of your life. Another example is investing your time to gain education from school which has the expectation of increasing your earning potential. In contrast, spending an hour of time would be aimlessly scrolling social media or working on tasks to stay “busy” but not productive.
Be consistent
Time investing works similar to stock investing. Consistent investments build compounding interest which drastically grows the value of that investment over the long haul. Investing your time requires consistently putting in the time and being patient for the compounding effect to build up. You cannot expect to get massive value out of a one time investment of time. Furthermore, returns aren’t guaranteed and you must diligently focus your investments of time on the most profitable assets. What once provided massive value may fade with time and must be replaced with more current opportunities. Think about technology and how quickly it advances and becomes outdated. As a result, companies go bust and new companies take their place. Similarly, your skills will become obsolete and you must replace them with more advanced skills. Above all, stay focused on constant growth so as to not fall behind new opportunities.
Time is constant
Without getting scientific, time is constant. Everyone has the same amount of it every day. What separates people is how they utilize it. As a result, successful people continually become more successful and unsuccessful people continue to stay unsuccessful. If you have ever found yourself stuck in life and feeling like nothing ever changes or improves, look at how you are spending your time. If you are successful, analyzing your time will take your success to the next level.
I challenge you to write down how you spend your time within a typical day. After that, take responsibility for areas where your time should be invested toward a goal rather than spent on immediate gratification. Become aware of where you waste your time and make the decision to invest in your future.