20-video series #7: Start TODAY, and utilise your time meaningfully and efficiently
Dec 23, 2022
Welcome to my new 20-video series, on the 20 Next Level Wealth steps to designing and then living your dream life.
The dramatic landscape changes over the past few years have created a unique opportunity for you to design and live your dream lifestyle.
In this 20-video series, which I filmed while travelling around Europe, I've aimed to articulate everything important that I've learned about personal finance, business, wealth, and designing an ideal lifestyle...into just 20 short blog posts!
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Value your time
It’s been said that time is more valuable than money.
That’s because you can always get more money, but you may not be able to get more time.
Obviously then…you must put a value on your time!
Most professional jobs take up around 60 hours of time per week, if you include travel, the time it takes to get ready for work, and, for knowledge-based roles, all the time you spend thinking about work.
That could add up to around 240 hours each month!
Yes, work gives you more than just money: status, a job title, daily interaction, and a challenge.
But it often takes up a vast amount of your time, and you can often get these benefits in other ways in any case.
And yet most people don’t have much left over from their net pay at the end of each month.
This is not a difficult exercise to do.
Work out how many hours you work in a typical month, and then take a look at how much you are saving each month, on average.
Run the numbers.
The answer may surprise you, and not necessarily in a good way!
How do we find extra time in the month?
Online media
It’s easy these days to waste a phenomenal amount of time on emails and social media.
If you’re really struggling for time, try dealing with emails once per day.
If you think marginally about your time - and deal with each message only once - you will experience a tremendous benefit: reply, delete, or file away.
One of the inherent problems with email is the more replies you send the more messages you receive back!
Probably at least 90% of the emails you receive don’t need a reply, though.
Only reply to important messages.
Similarly, you phone voicemail shouldn’t encourage people to leave lengthy messages.
Just leave a message saying “email me if it’s urgent” (or words to that effect) and move on.
As for social media, if it’s taking up too much of our time, then schedule a time for dealing with it all.
Be careful about spending too much time on Instagram and Facebook, too, because “comparison is the thief of joy”.
The images posted on Instagram tend to represent an ideal rather than the reality, and it’s all too easy to get caught up in the comparison trap.
Spare time
Most of us are busy these days, and we only have so many hours spare in the week.
In saying that, we all have the same number of hours in a day, week, month, and year.
It’s about prioritising what you spend your time on.
What you do with the time you have available is vitally important.
We all need time to relax and get away from work, for investing, and for building wealth.
On the other hand, too many people waste dozens of hours per month on low-yielding pursuits (it used to be television…these days it might be gaming, watching videos on i-Phones, and other pastimes).
A few years ago I’d somehow gotten into the situation where I was getting dozens of phone calls per week.
This was largely because I was active in the real estate market and I’d ended up on a lot of real estate agent lists.
It was such a waste of time!
Then I went to Thailand for a month’s break, took my SIM card out, and switched my phone off.
What a difference it made!
I got all my spare time back, and took zero phone calls for the entire trip.
Bliss.
I learned these lessons and applied them, and these days I very rarely get any phone calls at all.
Don’t procrastinate
As the old saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is today.
Don’t wait to take action, due to procrastination or a fear of failure.
Do it today.
I discussed this further in the short video below.
Watch it here.
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Whenever you’re ready…here are 4 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:
- Boom or Bust in 2023 – 20 minute online workshop for investors
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