By: Douglas J Utberg

One of the topics that is most frequently written about is time.  Every person wishes that they had more time available to do the things that are important to them.  Since time is so elusive, it is reasonable to conduct a closer examination of the time that we have in a given day, and how we choose to allocate that scarce resource known as time.

Every day contains within it, 86,400 seconds.  One way to gains some insight into how we use the time of each day is to think of the activities we engage in as ‘spending’ our time.  This ultimately begs the natural question of whether we are spending the majority of our time each day on the things that are the most important in our life.  The impact of this question is profound, because time is the single greatest equalizing force in the universe.  All people have the same amount of time in the day.  Regardless of your personal or financial situation, each day contains within it a finite amount of seconds, minutes, and hours.  How you choose to use those precious seconds will shape the future of your life.

Speaking for myself, I prefer to view our daily time in terms of seconds.  By articulating time in terms of seconds, it highlights the extend to which each second is important.  In many cases, it is quite possible to overlook things that we use time on and waste time on by sliding it in-between other activities that take larger amounts of time, and thus delude ourselves into thinking that we are being productive when we are actually wasting large amounts of time on activities that do not support our long-term goals.

Let’s start with the time that we spend sleeping . . . Since rest is an important part of being productive, why don’t we assume 7 hours (25,200 seconds) are spent sleeping?  Most people also have jobs that they work at during the day.  We should also assume 8 hours per day of work (26,800 seconds) and a total of 60 minutes (3,600 seconds) spent driving to and from work.  If we add 30 minutes for each meal and another 30 minutes each morning and evening to get ready, that leaves us with only 19,800 seconds each day to spend on things that aren’t eating, sleeping, or working.

The critical question to ask yourself is what are you doing with those 19,800 seconds each day to improve your life?  Some studies have shown that the average person spends approximately 5 hours (18,000 seconds) each day watching television.  Simple arithmetic shows that if television (or other forms of passive entertainment) occupies 18,000 of the 19,800 seconds that you have available each day to spend on yourself, that you won’t have much time left for self improvement.

What if we shifted things around a little bit and focused on self improvement first and entertainment second?  What if you spent an hour (3.600 seconds) each day reading?  What if you spent 30 minutes (1,800 seconds) each day planning and organizing?  Maybe another 30 minutes exercising to stay healthy?  How about 30 more minutes to analyze your finances and investments?  If you did all of this, there would still be 10,800 seconds left in the day to do whatever you want (including watching television), and would most certainly create a noticeable improvement in your lifestyle and financial situation.

Changes at the Margin

The way that we shift the course of our life is to make small changes at the margin.  It is not reasonable for most people to completely change everything about their life.  However, it is quite reasonable to do one thing differently each day.  In this way, a single small change that is compounded over time can produce tremendous results.  In the case of most people, allocating 30 to 60 minutes (or 3,600 to 7,200 seconds) per day toward an activity that will help their future can pay tremendous rewards over time.

In the end, our achievements of tomorrow will be built on the activities and decisions of today.  In this way, each day becomes a building block for tomorrow.  Each time that we decide to do something productive, it represents a victory.  Each time that we decide to waste time, it represents a failure.  Success results from tilting the balance of victory vs. failure in your favor.  By doing this every day, it can create a tremendous impact over time that creates real value for our personal, professional, and financial lives.