5 Reasons Why Time Is More Important Than Money

5 reasons why time is more important than money
If you work ridiculous hours and have no time to actually have a life then you are doing it all wrong!

Time is more important than money! There I’ve said it.

The whole idea is that you work to live and not live to work but somewhere down the line a lot of us get this concept all mixed up. It’s like one of those catch 22 situations where you initially take a job to enable you to earn more money and thus lead a better life, but it becomes a never ending pursuit of more money and a promise that one day you will cut back the hours. So you end up basing your life around work and the whole plan has flipped 180!

It’s not right is it? Okay you may need the money to support a family or you may work in a profession that requires long hours with little time off, but there are always ways to increase your earnings without compromising your life. The first step is to actually realise that a change needs to be made.

So I am going to show you 5 reasons why time is more important than money.

1. We only have a limited time on this planet so make it count

There are various theories that with the advances in science and medicine many of us will live past the age of 200, and possibly a lot longer than that. Age reversal, stem cell technology and the curing of various diseases are just some of the ways this will be possible, but so far all of this is still in the development stage.

We can’t expect to solely rely on the idea that we will always be here. Most of us see death as a taboo subject and we naively believe that we will be around forever, but we should be living our lives as if there is a time limit.

That timer is counting down and we have no idea when it reaches zero, so why are we wasting most of our time doing the things we don’t want?

2. When you look back on your life, you never wish for a bigger bank balance

Think of your life like a book that is being written and will be published when your time is up. I’m fairly sure that you can’t fill up a book with your bank balance so what else is there?

Each chapter of this book should be focused on a different aspect of your life and to enable this to happen, your life should be as varied and eventful as possible. Spending countless hours every week for years on end working yourself into the ground will not make a very good book, not unless you are making a difference with your job and/or money.

When people look back on their lives they never wish they could have spent more time in the office so take note of this now and do something about it.

3. There is no point having money if you have no time to spend it

There are many people out there who just love to hoard money away in the hope that one day they will eventually have enough to retire. These hoarders actually have a scarcity mind-set and are afraid of losing their hard earned cash. The truth is, no amount of money will ever be enough for them and they see their increasing bank balance as a barometer of their success.

It would be unfair to call these people ‘tight’ as a refusal to spend money can also be attributed to a lack of hobbies or social life. It’s certainly easier to spend 70 hours a week in the office if you feel like you have nothing fun to do outside of work.

The solution to this is quite obvious. The more we have going on in our private lives, the less time we will allow work to take from us.

4. Those who have time want money, and those who have money want time

You know the funny thing is that most people want what they can’t have and this is usually true across both ends of the time/money spectrum. Those who are unemployed or have low incomes will strive for more hours or a better paid job while those who are on six figure salaries often moan that they have no time to spend with their friends and family.

Neither of these is desirable and both will ultimately cause unhappiness in your life so the trick is to find a happy medium which leads me to my next point.

5. A healthier balance leads to a healthier life

It’s almost like a cruel paradox. You can have all this free time but no actual money to do anything worthwhile or you can have all this money but no free time to do the things you want. The trick is to find a balance and earn enough money without sacrificing all of your free time.

Easier said than done I admit but if you find yourself out of sync with your work and amount of free time then you should try to find ways of addressing this imbalance in your life.

Remember we only work x hours a week because that is the amount that society arbitrarily places upon us all. This amount isn’t set in stone and it is up to us to decide what we do with our lives.

If you are in a position where you have little choice but to work a lot of overtime or you don’t have the resources to free up a lot of your life, just take the opportunity to have some ‘you’ time. Keep your weekends free or have one or two evenings a week where you have the chance to do whatever you want.

Take that class, have that night out, practice that hobby, have a weekend away, spend time with your friends/family/partner. Whatever it is that you daydream about at work, make some time during the week to focus on that and I promise you that you will be far happier and less stressed.

So let me know, is time more important than money or is it the other way around?

About Jamie

Jamie is a guitar teacher and writer who hates the typical 9-5 existence. After quitting his job to enter the world of guitar tuition, he created this blog to document his thoughts and struggles as he takes on societies norms armed with nothing more than his cheeky wit and undeniable charm - Give his Facebook page a like, add him on Twitter or follow his Google+ page and he will repay you with even more awesome words!

Comments

  1. Indeed Jamie. There is much to be said for the value of time. Your blog today reminds me of a favorite passage of mine from Walden, by Henry David Thoreau “… I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop…”

    On another plane, I am most alive when I am working “hard” at something I love. The paradox is it is not hard work when it is a labor of love. I guess you could say, the value I find in “free time” is to create labor of love.

    • That kind of follows the theme of what I like to talk about, that if your job is your passion, then you don’t feel like you are giving up your time! Thanks for your comment!

  2. Peter Burke says:

    Yep, definite like. I’m glad I signed up for this blog …. I always tell people I’m way too cool for money, and of course they laugh at me, but think about it — money isn’t really that important. How many people on their death-bed say, “Get me my tax records, I want to see how much money I made back in 1974.” Nobody, no one says that. No one dies with their hand out asking for one final chance to fondle their checkbook. They’re with their loved ones, or wondering why their loved ones aren’t there, or staring at empty walls wishing they had loved ones. No one on their death-bed says: “There’s just one thing I’d like to see again before I die. A bank statement. That’s the one thing I’d really like to see one more time before I go: that record of the paycheck I deposited back when I was 44.”

  3. that’s so right
    the perfect thing would be having both, time and money
    so that you can enjoy your life, that’s why i chose online business as my path
    farouk recently posted..How to give a motivational speech to a friend or to yourselfMy Profile

    • Indeed Farouk, you are one of the few to have mastered the true balance of having both! This is what I am working towards!

  4. For me it’s more being successful at what I do than money that’s important. Some kind of validation I want (think I need) that hurts the healthy balance you talk about.

    Great blog Jamie, I like that you provide a lot of substantial and down-to-earth info in a concise manner. Something I often miss at other sites.
    THIJS recently posted..Demystifying Location Independence: How to Actually Do It (Not Just Ramble About How Cool It Is)My Profile

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