Time: Your Scarcest Resource – Here’s How to Protect It
What would you say is the scarcest resource you have?
Love?
Happiness?
Energy?
Money?
It’s not love. The more love you give, the more that comes back to you. Love is an endless resource.
It’s not happiness. You can find happiness in anything and anywhere if you have the right outlook.
It’s not energy. Your energy is like a battery or a fuel tank. You take and take and you run low or even completely empty at times. But just like a battery, you can recharge your energy.
What about money? This might feel like a superficial answer, but our actions seem to insinuate that this is our scarcest resource. We spend all day (and sometimes night) trying to make it. We lock it up in impregnable vaults. We divide society among those who have it and those who don’t, and even by how much. But money is not our scarcest resource. There will always be a way to make money. There will always be more.
No, your scarcest resource is your time. Time is something that once it’s spent, you can’t get it back.
So let me ask you this – why do we go through such great lengths to protect our money and hold on to it, but we often don’t think twice about how we give away or spend our time? Do you sit down as an individual or as a family to make a financial budget? Do you do the same at work? Fill out an expense report? See how your spend is tracking against your budget goals? Do you ladder that spend up to what you find most important in life? Saving up for a home, or an education or to build a successful business? Most of us do this in some form or another. We might even have a purchase in mind and we pause to think of the trade off made when purchasing that item because it means that money doesn’t get spent elsewhere, or we delay another. But how much thought do we put into how we budget our time?
Let’s go through a time budget exercise.
Your year begins with 8,760 hours.
Now, we know there are standard time expenses we have to make. We have to sleep, for example. So let’s say you sleep 8 hours on average a night, you’re now at 5,480 hours.
Now let’s say you have a typical 40 hour a week job and get four weeks off through the year for holiday/vacation. You’re now at 3,560 hours left.
Next let’s say you spend on average 1 hour a day on personal hygiene/self care (shower, brush your teeth, etc.) and another 1.5 hours between breakfast and dinner meals.
We are now at 2,467.5 hours – only 30% of your total time budget is left.
We haven’t even started talking chores and home care, paying bills, doctor visits, and so on.
You only have about another 47 hours a week, 6.7 hours a day to decide how to spend your time. Your time that once is gone, it’s never back.
How will you spend it?
Will you take 5-7 hours a week for exercise?
Will you dedicate 5-7 hours for personal development?
Will you devote 14 hours to family time?
Or will you spend 10 hours binge watching the latest Netflix series?
Or a couple hours catching up on the latest gossip with your neighbor?
Will you give away 4 more hours a week checking those 20 emails you couldn’t get to in the office?
Every free minute or hour in our life is precious. You should look at the following buckets and decide how to budget your time. And next time you feel the urge to check that email or attend that get together with people who are negative and draw you down, think about what you give up.
Budget your time to what’s most valuable to you in life. Maybe it’s family, your health and wellness, your development and growth, your peace or your relationship with God.
Think about how much time you want to “spend” on each of those and PROTECT it. Lock it up in your time vault. Be frugal. You’ll never look back on your life and regret spending time on these things and not something that wasn’t in your value bucket.
Finally, think about giving. Most people feel they need to wait until they are wealthy to give. Anyone can give money and go make more. But time is priceless and you have that to give whether you are financially flourishing or not. Make sure you think about budgeting some of your time to give to others.
See you next time… see what I did there 🙂
Want help going through this exercise before the New Year? Download my time budget template below and join me in budgeting your time to achieve your goals and focus on what matters most.
Happy trails,
Diana
Ranch n' Business 
