How valuable is time?

I have long placed some serious value on my time. But I admit that my value shifts over time and situation. This morning, coffee in hand, I began thinking back to a few experiences where it is clear that others may feel differently.  

For example, at one time I was hired over a production area that was heading into bankruptcy.  To test the work culture asked the foreman to build me a box measuring 3’x3’x5’ as inexpensively as possible.  He ended up building the most expensive box on earth because he did not account for his time or the time of the employee helping him.

When I was teaching, I had about 5 classes that semester…. Anyway, I commented to another instructor that a specific student was eating up more of my time than all my other students put together.  The other instructor did not seem to see a problem.

So, how valuable is your time?

Time is my most valuable asset. Though it is worth nothing.

Folks can put money in the bank and make it grow.

My time does not grow.  It stays the same day after day.

How much time can I waste? As much as I want ...

Hi Anne,

I am curious, what do you do when you “waste” time?

For example, I posted elsewhere that I take an afternoon nap. I don’t consider that to be a waste …but I am sure some people might.

You can never get time back, so in a way it ought to be priceless!

Time passes no matter what.  So anything which enhances life, is a way of "investing" our time.  

Resting, savouring food, chatting with friends, pondering plans for next year's growing season, helping out a neighbour, so many ways to invest time that enhances our lives.

But where we have financial demands, we are forced to put a notional financial "cost" on our time.

So like health, l'd say time is both everything but also, ideally, completely outside of money terms.  

John F Dean wrote:Hi Anne,

I am curious, what do you do when you “waste” time?

For example, I posted elsewhere that I take an afternoon nap. I don’t consider that to be a waste …but I am sure some people might.

Sometime, right here on the forum.  Sometime playing a game, though I play games that use the brain.

Sometimes just asking google stupid questions to see if he knows the answer.

Today, I watched a movie about the abduction of Alice Creed, (fiction?), total waste of time.

Time is worth whatever you're paid for to use it.

When I was a software engineer and systems administrator, that time was exceedingly valuable (at the time 😉). It didn't matter if I was chatting with my coworkers, taking a long lunch, or working on a specific problem. The amount of money paid was the same. Yes, they paid me for my expertise, but in the end, they were paying me for 40+ hours a week. How I used it was my own choice (and to a certain degree, theirs). I was paid to get the work done. How I did it and what time it took was my own judgment.  I didn't clock out to use the bathroom and no one expected me to. In fact, the businesses didn't have timestamps, so everything was more or less an honor system.

That being said, when I did AI training for a bit, they paid me a LOT less and they had software that kept tabs on me. So, again, they paid me for my time doing something. It didn't require expertise, just a lot of following their rules.

Since one's time is finite, you would expect it to be valuable in some way. After all, there are tons of jobs out there that are looking to pay something for one's time. But, when you work for yourself, the value of time is hidden. Maybe if you considered what it costs to do a particular thing if you paid someone when you do it yourself, you'll figure out how much your time is really worth.

And yeah, I slack too, but hey, that's my choice and it's priceless.

Money can't buy time. Ask Steve Jobs. I'll bet he would have traded all his billions for more time, with a humble home and a large garden. My 2c.

I always thought energy seemed more important than time to conserve. After all, if we had infinite energy we’d be up all night and never have to rest and sleep. When we give ourselves time to rest and relax, we are able to put more energy into the things that matter. Making things as easy as we can do them while still doing them well for us lets us get more done and not wear ourselves out, and it seems less likely to let things fall when there is less energy investment necessary. I also like slow activities, how they let the mind rest and contemplate various things. There is a lot of value in tedium.

When ever I see the title of this thread I  hear this lovely Pink Floyd song in my head ...might have to dig out the LP and play😊
My own personal relationship with 'time' is changing as I age...weeks fly by, days are short...things are dropping from the 'to do'list like flies!  
In the past jobs, school, caregiving duties kept my days connected to a clock....now there's a lot more freedom that is quite valuable.

Time
(Pink Floyd)

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away, across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell

M Ljin wrote:I always thought energy seemed more important than time to conserve.

There is truth in that. Time and energy are bound together. Without energy to do things, time is of little value. And energy without time could be an exercise in frustration.

Perhaps the less time we have left the more valuable to us it becomes.

There are two parts to the equation of life.
Energy and time. Energy, not in the sense of finding motivation, but of the ability to sustain oneself.
The most common way to acquire energy in most of our lives is money. Money or the acquisition of energy are fungible. The power of compounding means that there are almost infinite amounts of energy that can be harvested or created, almost infinite paths to do it.
You can bag on 'worky jobs', but money is the easiest to compound. When invested, it silently works, 24/7/365, growing, providing future acquisition of energy.
Investing in yourself, your skillset, investing in your 'home(stead)' wherever you live, means finding ways to wisely compound your labor, and therefore your ability to acquire energy. Most live with a balance of both paths.
Time, however, is not fungible. Finite, it passes no matter what, and cannot be created. It is the limit to the compounding part, or the future acquisition of energy. That should help frame a person's answer to the 'value' of time.  

Very interesting to connect energy with money. It sounds to me like money is essentially embodied energy. In the past, items with high embodied energy like wampum, silver, gold, or even biological energy like barley, cattle, and cacao, or even lower calorie substances like tobacco were used as a standard valuable substance.

I think money is often hailed as the mark of profitability, but energy is a far more basic form. If we can homestead and tend to our energies so that they increase rather than decrease, we can be regenerative on a personal as well as ecological levels. I tried too long to put my effort into projects that were a black hole for effort and drained me, and it was not fun…

I only recently had the "human living time is finite" epiphany when reaching middle age after several years of different careers. Now, I have to compare the time something takes to complete/work for with the amount of enjoyment/long term benefit I will make out of the activity/purchase. I do have the benefit of having my own business and working from home so I have a little leeway when it comes to what I do with my time and energy.

For "free" chores that only take my energy and time, will it benefit me / my home / my environment for me to spend time on this in the long term? Will it make my house work better or make me, my spouse, my animals, or my community happier? On the flip side, will I feel like it "wasn't worth it" after I finish? After a bunch of life experience I usually have a good radar for things that I *will in the future* feel are worthwhile. I realize this is different based on your personality, but I think everyone has something unique that they find valuable.

For things I have to buy, I have to trade money for these which means trading my time working. Most of the time I try to reduce the amount of money I spend because it does chain me to having to work for more money, which I dislike! I am ok with the concept of working "enough" to make "enough" money to pay my bills/put some money away for later so I have plenty of time to do non-monetary-based enjoyable activities (see above).

I think if I didn't have to worry about healthcare (I'm in the US) or basic bills like electricity I would likely be ok with a barter/sharing economy. At least my "time" doing what I'm best at could help others that can't or don't like to do what I do (saving things from the trash/repairing for reuse).

This is the long way to say my time is infinitely valuable *to me* and I want to do things I enjoy.

We are only aware or conscious of time because we are alive.  Without life, there would be no time, so it is my most precious asset. It is my life.

It starts when you catch that first breath and it will end with the last one - make it count.

We get bogged down by the clocks, the calendars, the timetables, all that man made stuff created to try to control the uncontrollable, but we've all experienced that time is not bound or restricted by those limitations.  Who hasn't felt the intangibility of time, you know, that special break that went so fast that it did not feel like a week or that last hour at work that feels like it will never end, every 5 minutes feeling like an hour.  That beautiful summer that went in the blink of an eye or that grey winter that seemed to go on and on.  Yet still squeezed within the confine of those months, days, hours, etc.  

Nature does not confine itself to those borders, why should we.  Because of all those time controlling devices, we've lost the ability to listen to our inner clock and forgot to live.

The birds know when it's time to migrate, the bear knows when it's time to hibernate, the apple tree knows when it's time to blossom, even a mother feeding her child will know when it is time by the hardness in her breast.

Because my precious time on this planet earth is so short, I do try to make it count and I never feel that I am wasting time whether it is sitting at a desk at work, bringing up  children, mucking up the stables or watching a film, as long as I am grateful for every day that comes.

Time is marching on and my time is coming, so yes, every moment of my time is valuable and precious.