Time defines what you become 🙌
All accomplishments, skills, experiences, everything is an investment of time.
It's worth learning what are the core principles and pitfalls of time investment, it defines what you are (and what you will be) 👇
The ultimate currency
Time is the price of everything. Everything.
It's a limited currency that depletes constantly. Therefore, any action that you take is effectively an investment (no different from money).
Treating time as the most precious investment is the secret of achieving anything 🎯
An important rule: every "yes" is paid in time.
When you say "yes" to going out, doing a task, starting a new project, these "yes" are accepting an investment in time in the future.
Be carful with your "yes" 🧐
Start and end
Since the currency is limited, you need proper management to optimize returns.
It all starts from measuring (aka defining) the total daily amount 👀
In other words: when does your day start, and when it ends.
You have 16 hours of active time each day (8 hours of sleep, no less!)
You get to decide when these 16 hours start (when you wake up). You want to keep the start/end times constant for maximum effectiveness (everyday waking up at the same time).
What time you go to bed is the first key decision, the core of time management ⏱️
Not when you wake up, but when you go to bed 👆
Priorities
Second: what are your priorities?
Now, a few priorities come embedded with your existence as a human being:
- Sleep (8 hours)
- Eat
- Fitness
- Hygiene
Those cannot be avoided, so you need to play around to optimize each of these.
Important: fitness is not optional! 🫵
All other activities morph around those requirements.
A good exercise to start: write down what you do every single moment of your typical day as you go through it.
Then look back at it: these are your current priorities 👀
Note that "priorities" is about action, not intention. What you do is your priority, not what you say.
List your intended priorities, look back at how you spend your time, and align those two ⏱️
Context switch cost
Once you got your priorities straight, now you can optimize.
Note: Don't optimize before defining your real priorities (actions), otherwise you will climb fast the wrong mountain!
The key when scheduling time is minimizing context switching:
Context switch: time it takes to finish one activity, and start the next one.
Two strategies:
- Reduce the total number of activities (long blocks of uninterrupted time)
- Avoid (cancel) distractions
Option 1 is more reliable: you get in the flow, and cash in every minute.
Option 2 requires discipline: how fast can you close one activity before you intentionally start the next one.
Once you treat time as your most valuable resource, you start to see how everything depends on it. Your current/future skills and outcomes are the result of time.
You also start to notice how much time greatness demands.
And you become even more selective about saying "yes".
See you next 👋