How Time Is Money Can Lead to Bad Decisions
You’ve heard the phrase “time is money” and we often use money to measure how much time we have . The problem is that time is not money. It’s much more valuable than money, and as personal finance site Done By Forty points out, determining a monetary value for your time can be problematic.
If you are like most people, you probably feel like you are constantly busy. However, research, including this 2011 study from the Monthly Labor Review, shows that people significantly overestimate their employment. This study, for example, found that subjects who were estimated to work more than 75 hours a week were mistaken by about 25 hours. Much of the problem, as Done by Forty explains, is that we value our time in terms of money:
… as we earn more per hour than before, we begin to see this hour as more valuable and rarer than it once was. Therefore, when we have to “spend” this hour, there is a feeling that we are giving up more … At some point, we believed the idea that time is money. And when we equate the two, we reinforce the idea that both are not enough. We save our money and time, even though we probably have more.
And this way of thinking perpetuates the cult of the busy . What’s more, it reinforces the scarcity mindset . Time is priceless, but we price it to help us quantify it, and by valuing it, we think we can buy more, so we’re constantly catching up. However, this is not just being busy. Done by Forty explains:
And the belief that time is money makes you think about other bad habits. First, we are less likely to sacrifice our time when we think one of our watches is more valuable. When we could make $ 100, it’s harder to convince ourselves to donate that hour to charity, although it’s a great way to make you happy and incredibly make you feel like you have more time too . Plus, when you start looking at your limited hours in monetary terms, we’re less likely to do things like recycling : it’s just not worth our precious time.
Check out the full post at the link below. It is an inspiring read and a helpful reminder that time can help you make money, but it is far more valuable than money.
You are not as busy as you think | Made by forty