Have you ever wondered how life would be like – if all of us are immortal? The feeling of knowing that the next day will be the same as today, and there will be a never-ending tomorrow. You would not age. You would not get sick. Death is nothing but distant folklore – echoing mildly, or close to non-existent.
Unfortunately, we won’t be having the luxury of infinite time anytime soon. Humans managed to extend life expectancies and longevity, but we are far from immortality. In spite of that, this gives more value to our time, making it the scarcest resource for mankind.
The Essense of Time
Why is it so important? Because it is limited.
A day with 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86400 seconds, whichever you prefer. It’s the same for everyone else. With every passing moment, you inch nearer to your death. Sounds melancholy, but it’s the truth.
With time, we also created a sense of urgency. If we are really immortal, the progress of human civilization will be drastically hampered. Why do it now when we can always do it tomorrow?
Knowing its limit, it is important to know how we are spending it.
The average human lifespan is 79 years. Based on an infographic shown in an article written by Gemma Curtis for dreams.co.uk, on average we spend:
| 1 | 33 years | In bed | From the mornings you couldn’t get out of bed. |
| – | 26 years | Sleeping | This is why investing in comfortable bedding products is so important. |
| – | 7 years | Trying to sleep | This sucks. Seriously, get a good bed. |
| 2 | 14 years 4 months | Work including overtime | Is this why we are told to love our work? |
| 3 | 11 years 4 month | Screen time | This is a lot of time on screens. |
| – | 8 years 4 month | TV | As they say, watching TV kills your brain cells, so… |
| – | 3 years | Social media | Less time on Facebook and Instagram maybe? |
| 4 | 4 years 6 months | Eating | Well, food is life right? |
| 5 | 3 years 1 month 3 weeks | Holiday | Aww Yissssssss. |
| 6 | 1 year 4 months | Exercise | For a healthy body. |
| 7 | 1 year 30 days | Romance | Oh. |
| 8 | 1 year 3 days | Socializing | So we spend more time on social media than we are being social… |
| 9 | 334 days | School (Primary & Secondary) | To think that going to school was a big part of life. |
| 10 | 235 days | Queuing | A lot of time was spent waiting. |
| 11 | 115 days | Laughing | Haha. |
| 12 | 136 days (Women) / 46 days (Men) | Getting ready | So women spend 3x the time men spent. Not arguing with that. |
| 13 | 8 years 2 months | Others | Includes commuting, cleaning, and other stuff. |
By looking at the table above, the average time spent on each activity does give you a sense of the importance of some of them. Say, for example, we should really make sure we have comfortable bedding products so that we are getting the best quality of sleep (it’s where we spend one-third of our lives!). If not, you’ll risk 7 years TRYING to sleep.
I have also written a piece about compounding and the importance of time as an ingredient here.
“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.”
Roy T. Bennett
Time Famine
First emerged in a scientific article titled “The Time Famine: Toward a Sociology of Work Time,” written by ethnographer Leslie Perlow in 1999, the term time famine refers to the universal feeling of having too much to do, but not enough time to deal with those demands. Sometimes it overwhelms us, and drives us crazy being not able to squeeze out the 25th hour. There are so many things in the world that require our time and attention.
In Perlow’s study, she discovered that a group of software engineers experiences time famine due to their highly demanding job, impossible deadlines, and office work environment. After some time management adjustments, the engineers were able to breathe a sigh of relief, and feeling less overwhelmed.
A 20-year-old student might be juggling between assignments, exams, and a side job trying to cover some tuition fees. A 30-year-old executive has to put extra hours into work to satisfy the boss so that he/she can advance the corporate ladder. A 40-year-old probably needs to balance between career and family. We all have our own selfish reasons to feel that our 24 hour day is not enough. How do we overcome this?
Overcoming Time Famine
Fun Fact: Ironically, whilst I’m writing about time famine and how to overcome them, I myself am experiencing the exact thing, and trying to cope. Having multiple deadlines piling up at my day job, the cycle of misery doesn’t seem to stop. Well, I guess this serves as another concrete proof that I’m the layman I said I am. Let’s see how we can overcome time famine together.
Setting Priorities
At times, we might look at all the tasks at hand and think of all of them as equally important, but most of the time this isn’t true. We can apply the Pareto Principle, a.k.a the 80/20 rule here, and try to identify which 20% of the work will give us 80% of the outcome. Once you have that sorted out, prioritize your time on completing that 20%.
Another important note on setting priorities is – do not leave yourself out. Work, family, and friends are important but don’t forget to spend time for yourself.
Buying Conveniences
You must’ve definitely heard from somewhere that we could use money to buy time, and YES we could. We can use $$$ to buy conveniences, which in return gives us back some of our time. The famous author of the 2009 New York Times Best Seller – I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Ramit Sethi is a strong advocate of buying conveniences. In Sethi’s blog post titled: “7 ways to buy back your time (Hint: Spend Money)”, guest author Tony Tran lays down a few suggestions on how to “buy more time”, I’m going to summarize it based on my relevance as below:
- Ride-Sharing – Using ride-sharing apps like Grab/Uber can save you the time needed to find parking. It can also save you plenty of time compared to using other modes of transportations.
- Housecleaning – If you find yourself spending a lot of time cleaning your house, time to consider delegating this task to a house cleaner.
- Food Delivery – instead of cooking your own meals or eating out, you can use food delivery services apps like Grab/Foodpanda to get food delivered right to your doorstep.
- Groceries Delivery – Similar to above, you can get groceries delivered to you for a small fee.
There are many other ways where convenience can be bought. You just need to weigh your options and the value you can get from them.
Short story: During my studying days, I have a friend who is willing to spend 15 minutes walking across the street (including crossing a pedestrian bridge) to a bank so that he can save RM1.00 on ATM fees. You could argue that it’s good exercise with all the steps climbing, but if the main objective is to save the RM1.00, I don’t think that’s worth the time.
Learning to Say “No”
One of the main reasons why are so short of time is because we say “Yes” more than we should.
“Do you want to join us for some games after?”
“Can you help send out that report on my behalf?”
“Want to get some drinks after work?”
If you have time to spare, by all means, go ahead. If you know that you are packed and can’t slot in any more of these activities, you need to politely decline some of these invitations or requests. Only you yourself are clear of your schedule, learn to say “No”.
Fear Of Falling Behind
You might feel that you’re falling behind if you take a break. You might feel that your peers will overtake you at any moment, so you struggle to keep up the grind. When you scroll through your social media newsfeed, it appears that another person that is younger than you and living across the world has made a breakthrough, far more than what you could ever have achieved even if you tried.
It keeps you up at night.
In spite of everything, at the end of the day, it’s your happiness that counts. No point putting the pressure of the world on your own shoulders. Take some time off, let yourself be you. Even if you were to waste some of your time, make sure you’re happy in the process.
“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.”
John Lennon
This is post #6.
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