Not enough time in your day right?
The adage that time is money makes a lot of sense on the surface but actually it doesn’t hold much water. Here’s why. Money is infinite, time is not. Once consumed, time is forever gone. It can not be reproduced. In contrast, money once consumed, can be reproduced. Ask the Feds. They print trillions of dollars at the drop of a hat. Similarly once you spend, you can still go work and make money to replace what was spent.
Spending money can also be delayed and while it is not spent, it will still be there when you decide to spend it. Time doesn’t care if you don’t use it. It will be gone whether you use it or not.
| Time | Money |
| Limited | Unlimited |
| Not Reproducible | Reproducible |
| Spending it cannot be postponed | Spending can be postponed |
| Reveled by the Wealthy | Reveled by the Rich |
Make no mistake though! If you feel challenged or even frustration because you never seem to have enough time, you can still “create” time for yourself.
We run several small businesses and are very busy, yet we are able to travel freely. We make deliberate choices to control our time and minimize it controlling us. A flexible lifestyle blending professional and personal activities into your life is possible by understanding the importance of protecting your time and carefully structuring your business structure.
Solution 1 – THE ORIGINAL
We presented Solution 1 in the original “How to Create Time Out of Thin Air” article. Read this before going on.
In that post, I promised a second solution that creates time out of thin air. True to my promise, I’m about to deliver! My readers humble me by forwarding ideas to me, so feel free to share yours in the comments section. Become part of this time crusade!
Solution 2 – LEVERAGE
Leverage – Now mind you, I’m certainly not the first to talk about the concept of using leverage to accelerate success and compress time. Other than to say that leverage is using the strength of something else to get more accomplished, I’m skipping the oft written definitions of leverage and why you need it to be happy in life. Just know you need it. You can run a search on “leverage” and you’ll find all the explanations of leverage and save me a ton of keystrokes! Yes, I’m lazy to suggest reading other author’s definitions but that’s leverage!
People
The most probable used and discussed form of leverage is using other people to get things done. How selfish, immoral, and rude! Get over it, you already are a master at it. I didn’t say to walk all over other people. We all have used leverage even if we didn’t know the term. Didn’t you ask your parents for help while growing up? Or ask a friend to give you a ride? How about being in a study group in college? You’re not some kind of dog-faced pony solider are ya?! Ooh, where did I pick that up from?
What you’re going to hear is a few different forms of leverage I am aware of and use in my life, and you can click the comment link to share any forms of leverage you know if you so choose.
Leveraging people for their time, knowledge, skills, status, network of people, wealth, personality, morals, looks, possessions, athletic ability, character, authority, empathy and other attributes I can’t think of yet, is an act everyone performs consciously or subconsciously everyday. The higher the degree of leverage being applied, the more likely success is to be seen. Examples include successful corporations like Apple, Amazon, and Nike and organizations like the Lakers. They hire the best talent do they not? And many of them too!
We see Tom Selleck on a TV commercial selling reverse mortgages. The lender is leveraging Tom’s good looks, fame, and integrity to convince people to turn their paid-off homes into sources of income. Wise on the part of the lender, questionable on the part of the homeowner.
How about boating? Find a friend who owns a boat and enjoy the benefits of boating without the money pit headaches of repairing, maintaining, and insuring them. Make sure you cover the beer and fuel after returning to the dock if you leverage in this manner! For you boat owners, beware! They’re coming at you!
Network marketing is another prime example of leveraging people. The most successful in this niche understand this. They relate skillfully to people’s needs and sell them a dream. They build a following of like-minded individuals. This niche allows people to maximize leverage by duplicating themselves in those who follow in their footsteps. With large numbers of followers, the leverage created can be immense.
However you choose to apply leverage through people you know, or will know, you are likely to liberate time getting more done with less risk, less cost, and very often at a healthy profit, whether that profit comes in the form of finance, time, or emotions.
A word of sage advice – be respectful when leveraging your friends and family! They will gladly help you anyway, but always give back.
Reverse leverage is a concept where, instead of leveraging other people, you allow them to leverage YOU! It is about generosity and not what’s in it for you. Why? It is rewarding to tithe, pay back, and pay it forward! The law of attraction rewards you by the simple act of giving and it’s healthy.
Quality
Leveraging quality is a form of leverage that was lost in America in large part due to outsourcing of manufacturing overseas and corporate greed. There are still many forms of quality that brands America as the place to find high quality. However products in the midst of today’s modern trends of cost reduction, quarterly profits, and excessive executive pay, have sacrificed quality for the almighty dollar.
Quality is more elusive today than say the earlier days of Ford and General Motors before Toyota and other Japanese auto manufacturers rose to quality dominance and never looked back. They were exemplary in leveraging quality to gain market share. Did it take a long time? Yes but it was arguably permanent. Not everyone will agree that vehicles should be bought based on my criteria of quality, but because unreliable vehicles can chew up a lot of unnecessary time, I choose to buy brands that I know will keep me out of the mechanic’s shop.
Kitchen appliances, washers, and dryers are the worst offenders. I dare not purchase new appliances with all the fancy bells and whistles without a strong extended warranty contract! In fact, I don’t buy new appliances. If I need an appliance, I buy used if at all possible, with the least amount of trick features that can go wrong.
An example of outstanding American quality can be found in Craftsman Tools. Craftsman still exists in spite of the demise of Sears Roebuck. I’ve had their socket wrenches for 35 years and they don’t break. I actually did have a Craftsman ratchet that finally broke after 24 years but Sears just handed me a new replacement. No hassle, no receipts, or complicated check outs. Hopefully Stanley Black & Decker which bought out Craftsman will continue the tradition of Craftsman quality.
Absence of quality in many things purchased these days is a source of unnecessary frustration for many consumers. Regardless of how much I can save by buying a product cheaply, I will detest the product if I know it is prone to defects or breakage. If you’re like the herd, then you might be thinking “If I just get what I want on the cheap, isn’t it worth buying it again inexpensively when it breaks, just as long as I can get it now and I don’t need to spend a lot?” And if it breaks a 3rd or 4th time, you keep justify buying even more replacements, inexpensively. It might make sense to you on the surface, but here’s the PROBLEM!
If you subscribe to that line of rationale, then you’re probably applying the same stinky consumer mindset to ALL the things you buy. Do you realize how exorbitant wasted time is on interrupts to everyday life, hassling with returns, praying the store will honor a refund or free replacement, buying replacements if they don’t, and installing them all over again? You’re talking about hours of time for each breakage whether or not you’re the one doing the labor or you hire someone. When you multiply that by all the things you own over the years, you might start wondering what you’re going to work for! The herd thinks all 40 plus hours they work each week is for themselves. It can’t be farther from the truth!
You’re already spending 50% of your workweek working to give government their taxes in the form of federal, state, capital gains, dividends, sales, property, gasoline, cigarette, et al!! The corporations have figured out you’re not going to bitch about the product they just sold you because you won’t even remember when you bought it, where the receipt is, and you’re too busy anyway! They purposely design products to survive a 30 day warranty period and after that, all the risk falls on your shoulder. Even if they offer a longer warranty period, think about the hassle of arranging to ship the item back or driving it down to a service center. Ladies and gents, if you know you’re one of those who gladly get in line to buy shit quality only to take it in the tailgate months or years down the road, I hope this is making an impact!
Repeated buying steals time. Having to make repairs if necessary also steals time but then you should have the necessary tools to do it quickly.
Remember, the rich own things, the wealthy have time.
Some wealthy dude
Generally speaking, the more modern a product is, the more complicated the electronics and mechanics are likely to be. The Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) is a term that represents the average time a product is likely to operate without failure. With complexity in design, the MTBF declines exponentially. That’s not good. As an example, a car with automatic rear window shades is 4 to 10 times more likely to have a malfunction than a car that doesn’t. That’s because the car with the window shades is also going to have other elite features that can go bad that the simpler car will not have.
Even if you are super wealthy and could careless about the cost of making repairs, you still get robbed of the time no different than one who isn’t as wealthy. Time doesn’t discriminate economic classes!
Tools
Leveraging tools – everyone including you has tools. They may be computers, tools in a garage, cooking tools, music making software, gardening equipment, office equipment, and literally hundreds of other things you probably will find in your home and garage.
Looking back, I recall the endless hours I spent trying to complete simple tasks that today take only a few minutes. Example – replacing an electrical receptacle in the house. The first time I tried, I didn’t have a circuit sensor, multi-meter, crimper, wire cutters, or wire nuts. Knowledge of electricity and safety was zero. Today I can replace a receptacle in 10 minutes. Over the years, I used the money I saved doing the work myself to buy tools and gradually built up a collection. I taught my daughter to do the same thing. She just started college and moved up to Utah. What did she take with her? Her tool box. As she tackles new projects and finds she is lacking a tool, she goes and buys it. Chip off the old block!
Cooking an impressive meal can take so much time without proper equipment that the temptation to instead buy take out from Panda Express might overrule. With a good food processor and other necessary kitchen tools, and necessary ingredients arranged in advance, you can slice cooking time to a fraction. Enjoy a glass of wine with the company of friends. Don’t confuse the decision to buy a tool that looks cool as being equivalent to the decision to buy a tool that is effective.
Example: I’ve visited many a friend for wine only to watch them struggle with their fancy and pricey wine bottle opener where the most effective one I use is a simple inexpensive sturdy cork screw style with a blade to cut the foil. I carry one in the car, one in my camping gear, and a couple in the kitchen. That’s it!
Your home office, if you have one, should be equipped with items that are high in quality, satisfy a need, and promote super high efficiency. Get rid of shit that doesn’t fit those criteria, unless of course it’s a Slinky. Gotta have one of those! In my home office, a 49″ display is a major productivity booster as it gives me up to 4 times the real estate to view my charts, tasks, and other displays. With a Fujitsu professional scanner, I’ve digitized and eliminated my space hungry filing cabinet. In its place, I have an aesthetically pleasing book shelf and curio combination.
I am subscribed to Stamps.com and do not make trips to the post office for stamps and supplies. I print my own stamps at a discount and all supplies are shipped to me. Identify where time leaks occur during the course of your day and find solutions.
These are just a few examples of tools I’ve adopted to create more time out of thin air. As these savings compound, I am able to do the things we love to do such as being around friends, family, and the outdoors.
Conclusion
Be fiercely protective of your time. As said earlier, money if lost can be made back. Time if lost is lost forever.
One other share before I end this post: I meet plenty of folks who would agree with everything stated in this post, but when it’s time for the rubber to meet the road and they need to fork out cash to invest in changes, their false sense of frugality freezes them out. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish!
Example: the Fujitsu scanner is a $900 item. Yes it’s expensive, but if that stops you, then you truly do not value time, especially when the scanner can save you several thousand hours over 10 years.
Value your time more than money and you will likely be rewarded with more of the latter in the long run.
KozyKoz
See you on the mountain, the snow, or the surf! Ja ne! じゃあね!
