Why Time Is Not Money

Why Time Is Not Money
Why Time Is Not Money
One of the biggest myths in time management is that time is money. Time is not money at all.

Let me ask you a question.

If you lose money, can you make it back? Of course you can! It maybe easy or extremely hard depending on your circumstances but it is not impossible.

But can you get your time back? Getting your time back, however, is impossible, at least until humans invent a method to travel back in time!

If you put money in the bank, does it give an interest? Absolutely! Howsover low the interest maybe these days! However, can you deposit time and the bank and get interest on it? Absolutely not.  The time you invest in some thing is lost forever and while you may get money as a result of it or may even save time in the future because of it, the time you invested is lost forever.

Can you manufacture money? I am not talking about fake currency here even though some “enterprising” people are even able to use that effectively! But one  can manufacture legal currency and also manufacture money for yourself through the work you have done.
But you simply cannot create time. It is a finite quantity.

I have a cousin who wanted to be a scriptwriter. When I asked him if there was any time frame he was looking at to achieve his goal, he said he wasn’t worried about the time involved as he had infinite time to do it. I told him that was an incredibly silly thing to say. Time maybe infinite on a cosmic scale but it is not infinite for any of us! One day, not too far in the future, we will all die!

Thus time is not money, time is far more valuable than money. BUT, even though time is far more valuable than money,  most people associate value only with money! No amount of time is valuable advice will drill any sense to people unless there is a monetary value attached to it. .

So here is an amazingly effective strategy you can use to protect your time that uses money as a variable.

Ask yourself -How much money do you want to make a month?
Divide the money in a month with the number of hours you are willing to work to achieve that
That is what your hour needs to be worth.

For assumptions’s sake let’s assume you want to make a personal income of Rs. 10 Lakhs a month and there are 200 hours you are willing to work every month. In this scenario your every single working hour needs to be worth Rs. 5000

If you are willing to work longer hours, then every single hour requirements maybe less, if you want to work less then the requirements are more but let’s assume you want to limit your working hours to 200 per month.

Now every time you do anything at work that is not productive, ask yourself – “Would I spend X amount doing this?” In our example the amount is Rs. 5000 so if you get distracted during work by a variety of things, here is what you need to ask,

Would I spend Rs. 5000 to spend this hour whatsapping?

Would I spend Rs. 5000 this hour for pointless chit chat in office?

Would I spend Rs. 15000 to follow a cricket match for 3 hours even at work?

If you have committed to working more than 200 hours per month to achieve your goal, then you need to  tougher with the questioning, even at home. In this case, the money per hour requirements would go down, however let’s keep it at Rs. 5000 for the sake of simplicity.

So in this case you ask yourself:

Would I spend Rs. 10000 for two hours to watch TV?

Would I spend Rs. 15000 to watch a three hour movie?

Am I willing to spend Rs. 15000 per day to spend time with my family?

If you ask me, sleep, a healthy family life, exercise and breaks to recharge yourself are important and are well worth the”money spent” in terms of used time. But then there is a whole lot of things you are doing every day that you just don’t need and makes no contribution to your productivity, mental well being and health, directly or indirectly.

By putting a money tag on everything, your priorities will change extremely quickly. You maybe willing to spend 15000 per day to spend time with family but you may not be willing to spend Rs. 10000 per day to watch TV. By putting a price tag and looking at it seriously, you will eliminate 90 percent of the activities that do not take you closer to your goal and only retain the absolutely essential work and leisure activities.

And folks, this is how you make the most effective use of your time.

About the Author

The author of this article, Anubhav Srivastava is a trainer, author and director of Carve Your Destiny, a first of its kind inspirational documentary featuring some of the most famous personalities from diverse fields, who teach the viewers how they too can make all of their dreams come true. The movie itself has been seen on Youtube by almost 1.5 Million people. Anubhav has also been featured in numerous International and India Media outlets such as BBC , The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Rediff.com, Leicester Mercury and many others.

As a speaker, he has trained participants from various reputed companies and organizations such as  KPMG, Star Union Dai-Ichi Insurance, Center of Development of Telematics, Telexcell, National Thermal Power Corporation, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Telecom Consultants of India Limited, Exide Life Insurance, iVentures Capital, Mother Dairy, members of IIT Madras, IIM Indore, IIT BHU, All India Management Association, National Cadet Corps, Institute of Chartered Accountants and professors from Punjab Agricultural University.

Email Anubhav Srivastava for coaching, consulting or motivational speaking queries at anubhav101@gmail.com. Facebook Profile: http://facebook.com/anubhav981

Watch Carve Your Destiny, the super inspirational movie by Anubhav Srivastava for Free at