Let me get this straight…

Everyone has heard that old adage. But it’s just plain wrong. I know, you’re thinking I’m wrong. But I’m not. Why? Because it’s backwards. Time may be a lot of things. Money? Simply deferred time. Why does the distinction matter?

I remember when I first became a consultant – billed out hourly. I would value everything by time. I would say “oh.. that car will cost me 3 months work”, or “I can pay for this book in 15 minutes” This was a good way to compare the real value of something. Would I really get the enjoyment out of this book that working 15 minutes would cost me? or would I rather allocate that 15 minutes to pay for the 3 month car? That method doesn’t work particularly well for me anymore, because I’m rarely billable these days. If I’m at a client site, I’m probably there on my own nickel.

I know what you’re thinking – no, there are other things that are worth money. Natural resources for example. Nope. Sorry, they aren’t. the only value of resources is time. If all resources were in unlimited supply everywhere, then the only value of the resource would be the amount of time taken to do something useful. As it stands, natural resources have value precisely because they take time to acquire. Rarity only makes something valuable because it takes time to acquire.

But still, why does it matter? Simple, because time and again, people value time at a lower rate than money. Many people compare things by price, and some compare things by time as I did when I was a consultant. But precious few people recognize just how valuable that time is, and fail to really value the overall time, rather than just the immediate time. One of the phrases I hear way to much is “I can do it faster if I just do it myself”. Yep, you probably can. and next time? and the time after that? what about if there’s a variation? it’s the whole “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life” thing. Your time is valuable. And almost certainly, you are underestimating that.

Many of us have heard that the best way to get ahead at work is to work yourself out of a job. In other words, your time is worth much more than simply the salary you’re making. The faster you can automate something, the faster you’ll be making more money.

So quit thinking in terms of how much something costs, and instead, think of how much time it can save. quit thinking time is money, and start realizing that money is just temporarily stored time, and that time is what really matters.