Monday, January 08, 2007

Time is Money...or is it?

I have been thinking about this concept a little bit in the recent weeks.  Not exactly this catch phrase but eventually this phrase came out of the argument I was having with myself.  It's popular in business to say this.  I don't believe I agree with the phrase any more.  After much thought process I have come up with "Time is time...Money is money".  The confusion is that in our culture time can be spent on a variety of things and so can money so they can become confused.  In addition we can spend time and money both on an activity so it becomes very confusing.

So is time the same as money?  I hope not!  When it comes to my personal life I really hope not but this blog is about my business life an in that I also hope it is not true.  One reason I hope it is not true is because I have little money to show for my time right now.  I have risked and lost and risen to risk another day which we call an investment and an education. 

If time = money then there is no excuse for wasting time.  I should only spend my time on business matters and for that matter only on business matters that produce revenue, and furthermore only on those business matters that can produce the highest revenue...right?

Well, in a word yes!  That is exactly what I should spend my time budget for business matters on.  However I believe that I need a time budget for other things than money.  What else could be important?  Well, let's be real selfish here and admit that I would like to live to be at least 100 years old.  Actually that is a kind of boring number I would actually like to hit closer to the 120 mark. 

In order to do that I am going to have to spend more of my time budget on things other than money.  Let's talk health.  I need to spend some of my time on exercise and some on nutrition education and on actually taking time to prepare healthy meals.  Yes, if time were money and I still operated like that I would eat many of my meals at fast food restaurants (and I have in the past).  But if I want to live to 120 I better give up the fast food and maybe even be a lot more careful about all restaurant eating.  To eat healthy so I can live to 120 it is going to take a little more time.  (Here is a link to the nutritionist my family meets with)

If I want to be alone in my older years then I could spend the rest of my time on making money but I don't, SO - I better spend some time on my relationships.  My Wife and Kids are one of the most important relationships I have and you guessed it...they take time. 

So there are some other things I want to budget time for like the fact that I want to develop myself as a moral person and as a creative person and as an intelligent person. Throw in some rest or sleep and I have spent a lot of my time, and I can't go out and buy more time. 

Time <> Money (a programmers way of saying time does not equal money) but in order to have some money I will have to spend some of my time on making money.  I wish to spend some of that time in financial education so what I have left better be pretty darn productive.  Without a financial education I will (and have) waste a lot of my time allotted for making money.

I don't suppose there are any answers here, only questions but this blog is hopefully a way for my customers and potential customers to get to know me as well as for fellow business people to hear what somebody else is going through.  I often wish I could read someone's reflections on such matters, but I figure I can start by sharing my reflections.  I personally read thoughts from other people and enjoy those of many, one that I have enjoyed is Bob Parsons of GoDaddy.  He writes a business blog about issues he has gone through. 

This whole time thing could be overwhelming but remember I have the same exact amount of time in my day as a Billionaire.  So obviously all I have to do is figure out how to better spend my time to reach my financial goals (as well as my other goals).  My wife and I have been thinking a lot about this and are trying to develop new services and ways of doing business that maximize our efforts, while increasing service for our customers at a lower cost.  Sounds impossible.  To understand where we are going it helps to begin with an understanding of my realizations of this subject...Time.  I know it sound impossible but because I have run out of time for blogging I will share more about that at a later time.

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