Eliminating Time-Wasting Activities
Another major reason why most people aren't wealthy is that they spend their spare time carrying out activities which are, at best neutral in their utility, or harmful to their health and financial well being.
Freeing up your time is absolutely crucial towards becoming wealthy. It allows you to perform a task that most people in adulthood do not bother with - actively learning on their own. My favourite motto is 'Knowledge Is Freedom'. In this sense I mean that knowing more will grant you natural leverage and a far greater decision making capability, which will ultimately lead you to becoming more wealthy when dealing with financial affairs.
Let's briefly discuss how to cut out television from your life, as an example. If you get home and watch 3 hours of TV a night on average, over 30 years you will have watched just under 4 years of TV. That is 4 years of your life sitting in front of mindless commercialism, not really learning. If it is broadcast TV, then you will have spent approximately 1 year of your life watching commercials. Scary? If you have a Sky+ multi-channel subscription type package, then with the extras, this will cost you approximately £23,000 over your lifetime. In fact, the opportunity cost is far higher, as that money could have been invested.
What else can be eliminated? Commuting is another time-killer. If you spend an hour each way commuting to and from work, you will spend approximately 20 days of your life a year in a commute. That means over 30 years you will spend over 1 1/2 years of that time commuting. So far, we've determined that TV and commuting take just over 5 years of your life out of a 30 year period. There is so much more to do in life than sit in a car, train or in front of the Idiot Box.
In the early stages of becoming financially independent, time can be thought of somewhat like money. Later on you will realise that time is a much more important commodity as money can be generated from money, whereas time cannot. Time is finite and thus is the most important commodity.
Time is the most important commodity you possess. Spend it wisely.
What do you do with that extra spare time? Easy. Spend it with your children, spouse or partner. Learn a new skill, such as healthy cooking. Play a sport, an instrument or learn how to invest better! Remember, the whole point about investing is to free up your time. Give it some thought.
Great article Mike. I agree. The most important thing you can do with your free time is to build strong relationships. Relationships with your children, partner and friends are the most important - how much time do we really make to talk to one another? - and they're also crucial in building a network for your business. Whether it be meeting colleagues after work, introducing yourself at trade and industry events, or socialising informally with your fellow professionals through clubs, at its most basic level the success of a business depends on the strength of its human relationships. Too many overlook this.
On Commuting I think this is a mixed bag. I find the time it offers to look out the window and reflect, or read a book, or do some light work can be refreshing. It earmarks a bit of quiet time in your diary. Of course, it depends on how you're commuting, where you're commuting to and how you manage the earlier starts and later evenings. However, if it offers you an opportunity to live somewhere with more space - that's larger and more serene - and you manage your commuting time wisely, I don't see it as necessarily being an obstacle.
I agree with most of what you've said, but not all.
I don't commute much, but I do spend 4 hours a week cycling to/from various regular engagements. I enjoy immensely this time that I spend watching the world. Others don't, but that's because 1. they are focussing only on their destination and 2. they believe in the dogma of doing as much in as little time as possible. Endless goals to reach, endless boxes to tick. People soon can't survive without them and are rendered incapable of existing in the world without a pre-planned agenda, which is rather sad.
Train journeys are similarly good opportunities to be content in watching the world go by, thinking, reading, or allowing down-time into one's life. I recently went to Ulaan Baatar by land-based public transport, which took three weeks, and got far more out of doing so than getting on a plane, despite the journey being twenty times slower.
Whether or not your time is well-spent can only really measured by whether or not you feel that it was well-spent. Measuring it by quantity achieved or things done is making some major presuppositions.