Up Your Business is an exclusive GEARS Magazine feature in which I share stories, insights, and reflections about business and life challenges.
As we approach football season, I’m reminded of Paul “Bear” Bryant, head coach of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide from 1958 to 1982. Many football experts consider him the greatest football coach of all time.
When Bryant died in 1983, they found a folded-up piece of paper in his billfold that contained the following message.
Imagine you had won the following “prize” in a contest: Each morning, your bank would deposit $86,400 in your private account for your use. However, this prize has rules:
- Everything you didn’t spend during each day would be taken away from you.
- You may not simply transfer the money into some other account. You may only spend it.
- Each morning, the bank deposits another $86,400 into your account for that day.
- The bank can end the game without warning. At any time, it can say, “Game over.” It can close the account, and you will not receive any more money.
What would you do? You’d buy anything you wanted, right? Not just for yourself, but for people you care about and even people you don’t know because, after a while, you couldn’t possibly spend it all on yourself, right? You’d try to spend every penny, every day because you knew it would be replenished in the morning, right?
How would you put a value on this “asset?” You’ve probably heard the phrase “highest and best use” for determining the value of a piece of real estate. For instance, haven’t you seen perfectly good buildings torn down and replaced by a restaurant, a strip mall, an office building, or a hotel? It’s because the property simply became too valuable as an income-producing asset to justify its previous use. The “prize” is real. Each of us is already a winner. We just haven’t realized it.
The “prize” is “time.”
1. Each morning we awaken to receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life.
2. And when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT carried over to the next day.
3. Whatever we haven’t used up that day is forever lost.
4. Yesterday is forever gone.
5. Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time WITHOUT WARNING.
So, what will you do with your 86,400 seconds? This article is about increasing the value of your time. Just like the real estate example, we need to think of time in terms of value. Just as the value of real estate is a function of its highest and best use, how we use time determines its value. So, we want to invest our time wisely to increase its value. Time’s value comes from how it’s used – the value produced by the expenditure of your time.
Are You Spending or Investing Your Time?
Take a few minutes and ask yourself, “What am I doing with my time?” Are you using your time wisely?
While we each have 86,400 seconds to invest daily, the quantitative and qualitative results vary. Some people are productive and maximize their capacity, but they’re frustrated and exhausted by day’s end. Others are less productive and still end the day with frustration and exhaustion.
On the other hand, many people have found the secret to greater capacity and peace of mind. They’ve learned how to differentiate between urgent and important things. They know that the key to getting more done is prioritizing and focusing their attention on what’s important, avoiding the tyranny of urgency.
Everything we do every day — even sleeping — fits into one of four categories. How much time you spend in each category determines your capacity and quality of life. In his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey discusses the relationship between urgent and important things. Below is my interpretation of Covey’s wise advice.
- Spending time on things that are not important and not urgent is nothing more than escapism. This category includes:
- Trivial busy work
- Unimportant phone calls, texts, and emails
- Gossiping and idle chit chat
- Surfing the net
- Gaming
- Timewasters – people and activities
- Reading junk mail
- Time spent on things that are not important but are urgent is a trap. Other People’s Problems or Assignable Tasks fall into this category.
- Some items on your “to-do” list
- Most unimportant phone calls, texts, and emails
- Solving or working on other people’s problems
- Spending too much time with mail and reports
- Some meetings
- Unimportant interruptions
- Doing popular activities like watercooler conversations
- Things that are both important and urgent are called Reactive Activities because they demand that you address them immediately. This category includes:
- Crises, emergencies, and fires
- Pressing matters/problems
- Deadline-driven projects or tasks
- Certain phone calls, texts, and emails
- Appointments
- Administering employee reprimands
- Minor directional corrections
- Important but Not Urgent things do not demand your attention – you choose to do them. This category contains Proactive Activities.
- Preparation and planning
- Goal setting
- Prevention
- Training, coaching, and praising
- Establishing and administering rewards and consequences
- Building and strengthening employee, customer, community, and supplier relationships
- Communicating and clarifying company values, culture, and goals
- Quality recreation to improve your mind and body
- Getting plenty of rest and sleep
Can you think of anything you do throughout the day that doesn’t fit into one of these four categories? Because you have only 24 hours per day (86,400 seconds), whenever you spend time in any one of these categories, by default, you’ll have less time to spend in one or more of the other categories.
So, armed with this information, here’s how you can become more effective. Keep in mind that your focus should be on important, proactive activities.
- If you feel you don’t have any extra time to spare, start looking in category number 1. Since these activities are timewasters (neither important nor urgent), steal time from these activities and invest it into category 4 activities. I’ll explain why a little later.
- Category 2 is the next place to look to capture more time. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking these activities are essential and even fruitful because you get a sense of accomplishment as you complete them. But remember, they aren’t important, so either stop spending time on them or assign them to someone else. In any case, take the time you spent in this category and invest it into category 4.
- You can’t ignore category 3 activities because they’re both important and urgent. But you do want to reduce the amount of time you spend in this category because reactive urgency zaps your energy and reduces your quality of life.
Even though it feels great to solve problems and get immediate positive feedback, don’t fall into this trap. Stephen Covey points out that you can become addicted to urgency because of the adrenaline rush problem and feel like a hero. This addictive adrenaline rush is the danger with both categories 2 and 3. - Category 4 activities will make you more effective, increase your capacity, and improve the quality of your life. As you increase the amount of time you spend in category 4 activities, you’ll automatically decrease the amount of time and energy you spend with urgent matters and hopefully eliminate the timewasters altogether.
Category 4 activities directly reduce urgency by addressing the root causes with planning, training, prevention, and preparation. This will free you to do the other important leadership functions that are vital to your health and your business.
What You Ought to Know
Here are some things you intuitively know about time, but you probably tend to ignore them, and when you ignore them, you may even feel guilty.
There’s a cumulative value to investing small installments over time. The best example is exercise. Rhetorically, would you benefit more from exercising 30 minutes a day, four days a week over several months, or from busting your hump once?
1. There’s no immediate value/benefit to making a single investment of time, so because there’s no immediate reward, we tend to stop too soon.
2. There’s no significant consequence to occasionally skipping putting in the time. But if this leads to the habit of regularly skipping it, your commitment eventually fizzles out.
3. Neglect also has a cumulative effect over time. Eating an unhealthy meal one time is no big deal – it takes weeks, months, and years, but eventually, there’s a point of no return.
4. There’s no cumulative value when we choose to do the random urgent things over the things we know are important.
So, what will you do with your 86,400 seconds? Those seconds are potentially worth so much more than the same amount in dollars. Think about it and remember to enjoy every second of your life because time races by so much quicker than you think. So, take care of yourself, be happy, love deeply, and enjoy life!
Here’s wishing you a wonderful and beautiful day. Start investing wisely!
Some Questions to Help Get You Started
What’s one thing you’re not doing now that, if you started doing it consistently and doing it well, would significantly improve your life and/or your business?
Where do you need to begin consistently making incremental investments of time?
What’s your biggest obstacle? What’s stopping you?
What are you willing to do about it?
