There is a mantra among finance gurus where they say, “Pay yourself first,” which means when money comes in, be sure to commit a portion of it to investments and savings before using it all up on bills and discretionary spending. It is a useful practice; but there’s something even more valuable than money that we should be conscious of how we spend: time.
As we become older, our perception of time changes. We become a little more aware of our routines and schedules. Age and responsibility force us to develop a relationship with time that would probably seem foreign and strange to our younger selves—time was abundant back then.
In my younger years I’d give my time to almost anyone or anything, often for no good reason—it didn’t seem like I needed too many reasons to be critical of my time-spending decisions back then.
As life rolls on, it’s clear that unlike money, time is the one thing that we can’t just go out and make more of. Life gives us a limit, a finite amount of time to live on this planet. We have a strict budget that we’ve been given, and it behooves us to spend it wisely.
So instead of finance let’s pretend we’re time-nance gurus—what is one piece of advice we might share with the world about how to spend our time? How about…
Pay yourself first.
In the words of guru RuPaul: “If you can't love yourself; How in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” Paying yourself with time is an act of love for yourself. This might manifest as a morning or evening routine where you spend a few hours in the doing things that fill your cup. It could be taking yourself out on a day date to your favorite book shop and café; or going on a solo vacation.
Our time is always going to be in demand by the people and responsbilities in our lives. Just like our money is always going to be in demand by mortgages, utility, insurance, grocery bills and so on. By paying ourselves first with time, we invest in ourselves in a way that fills our cup. And what can we do once our cup is full? We can give to others.
It’s that whole “put your mask on first then help others” on the airplane thing.
Pay yourself first.
That core principle of time-spending behaviour is something that a lot of good can be built around.
A personal anecdote
My perspective of time started changing when I moved across the pond, from the U.S. to the U.K. Suddenly my family and friends were six time-zones away. I never used to think twice about time-zones except when I had to remember what time my favorite show came on. I lived in the central time-zone in the U.S., so the TV announcers would say, “And tonight, a new episode of Friends at 9 eastern, 8 central.”
Being six time-zones away from friends and family was the start. Then I went through some casual culture shock and a whole big thing where I realized I’d kind of broken my reality by completely starting over from what felt like scratch in a new country, surrounded by new people. It was the most epic context switch. I was grateful I wasn’t having to learn a whole new language at the same time. Hat’s off to those who have done that!
The reality was: I had broken out of my home bubble—my mother ship—and arrived in a completely different bubble, and it changed how I perceived the world and the people in it.
I started with basically zero friends—I knew a few people, and those people knew people, but those people weren’t really my cuppa tea. Eventually I started finding my people. But there were some real gaps in my social life for a while, and making friends in a place where you have basically no network is quite difficult. But the gaps and difficulties forced me to reflect. And as I met people in this new context, I became acutely aware of how I felt after being around certain people. It really wasn’t something I’d ever thought too much about before, but as it was requiring an awful lot of effort and emotional energy to meet people and get to know them, I started noticing whether I left a scene feeling better or worse.
This was my great reset. And it was through this act of network building that I became so aware of time. Initially it was through the frame of who I spent my time with and how I felt afterward. If I felt drained or worse off, I’d cut ties. Here’s the thing: It’s easy to cut ties when you’re network hasn’t been established yet. It isn’t as easy when your ties are well established.
In the states, I was in a tangled web of people and relationships that I hadn’t consciously built because I had been in pretty much the same webs my entire life. I never thought twice about what I was getting spun into. I would just go with the flow.
But as I was spinning a web in a new place, my awareness grew. Networking is a web-weaving exercise you do with other humans.
The awareness I gained from networking flowed into other areas of my life. I began getting critical of how I spent my time in other ways—what hobbies I did, how and where I travelled, where I worked, my commute.
Cutting ties with people that drained me gave me a sense of power that I’d frankly never really realized before. I used that power to design my life in a way that helps me to maximize my returns on my investments of time.
For example: When I bought my house a couple years ago, the location was chosen as a design decision based on time factors—time it would take to commute to work, time it would take to walk to the gym, time it takes to get to city center, time it takes to get to my friends houses. My days have become routine and centered around optimizing my own time—I’ve become an early riser so I can engage with my hobbies and have a good gym session in the morning, I leave social events around 8:30pm so I have time to wind down and get to sleep by 10pm.
And I love myself and my life more now than I ever have in my 37 years on this little planet. I feel abundant and beautiful and pretty gosh darn awesome most days—and those are some yummy good feelings that 27-year-old me wouldn’t have imagined! No kidding!
Thinking of time as something that should be invested and spent wisely changes a lot of things. Who and what you invest your time in yields results—and just like investing money, you wouldn’t keep throwing money at an investment that was constantly losing value... You’d cut ties and invest your money elsewhere.
Are there any cuts you need to do make in your life? How are you paying yourself these days? One time-well-spent activity is just to reflect on how your time investments are going, assess the ROIs and think about what fills or drains your cup.
If you read this far, thank you 🙏 I really appreciate you being here with me!
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This was a really timely topic. I have been feeling exhausted and irritated about having all my weekends in April already booked. Dinner party, then funeral, then two parties again and then The Party where we all celebrate last of April. So reading your post really hit home. I'm 59 and acutely aware of time being a very limited resource.