The Value of Time

Most likely your boss pays you an hourly wage or salary per year. You are providing your employer with your time in exchange he/she gives you a nice fat paycheck. You give your boss your time and he gives you money in return. If you think about it, time is the only commodity that anyone has to offer. It is also the only thing that can be used to create something of value. You can give someone a product or service, however I would argue that it is impossible to have them without using some of your time.

Why do some receive more money for their time? Its simple they choose to make their time more valuable. The activities that we chose to fill our time with determine the price per unit of time. Just like with any other commodity value correlates with its usefulness. Gold can be made into jewelry, oil can be used for energy, cows are delicious to eat and so on.

You have to fill your time with useful tasks if you want more compensation for your time. Educating yourself increases your ability to accomplish more in a given period of time. Education also enables you do preform work that very few others can. The more you fill your head with valuable information the more desirable your time becomes. Is there really anyone out there willing to pay a lot of money for someone's time because he has "mad Halo 3 skills." I certainly hope not that would be pretty lame if they did. But you will find that someone who can preform open heart surgery can demand a high price for their time. Those that need some of his precious time will pay that high price.

I guess the message that I am trying to convey is that we are all given a finite amount of time on this earth. We all have the choice and freedom to do as we please with this precious time. If we don't see the value of this limited resource then no one else will either. If you personally don't have any problem wasting your time then it is most likely its not worth much. Making the decision to eliminate the waste in you life and using that time towards value adding activities can be quite rewarding.

ACTION ITEM: If there is anyone out there that actually took the time to read this post then please take the time to leave a comment on something that you or others can change to increase the value of time. Whether it is eliminating a certain wasteful activity or changing to something more productive. I think that this would be a good use of your time.