The phrase "Time is Money" has been around a long time. But never before in the history of mankind, has it been more important in our professional lives. Computing, software, and most recently smart phones and GPS have helped us to measure what we do; where we go; and how long it takes more accurately. In this lesson we will explore the 168 hours of time we have each week. No one has any advantage over anyone else. However, how we spend or invest our time will have the greatest impact on the quality of life that we lead. If you are accustomed to squandering your allotment of hours on non-productive things, the marketplace will reward you with meager returns in accordance with your efforts. However, if you invest your time learning and improving your professional skills; then practicing what you learned to improve your business or the company you work for; you will raise your value in the marketplace and you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.
Hence, how you allot your time each day will usually have a direct correlation to how much money you will have. Many people say that "money isn't everything in life." "It can't buy you happiness." "And in many cases it can lead to misery." That's all very true. If all you ever think about is obtaining money and you have no relationships or balance in life, it can surely turn you into a miserable person! However, if you work hard on yourself and improve your skills; earn more money; and enjoy a better lifestyle with those you love because of your achievements.....then as Zig Ziglar states "money can rank second in importance, right behind oxygen."
It's really quite simple: If you want to be among the best in your field, and if you want to be extremely valuable in the marketplace, it will take a planned investment of TIME, in small daily increments - to get to that point. The key here is to accomplish SMALL objectives each and every day, by investing your time wisely, en-route to accomplishing BIG long term goals.
Let's say that you decide not to invest time in becoming among the best in your field, and you really have no desire to be valuable in the marketplace. Well, that doesn't take much investment of time at all, does it? Anyone can do that! You'll have less money and accumulate more debt. You will become an unofficial employee of banks and credit card companies. Unfortunately that's just the type of client that banks and credit card companies love. They will earn billions while you pretend to "ENJOY" yourself instead of invest your time wisely.
Now is as good time a time as any, to stress the importance of having LONG-TERM goals; of having goals that are much bigger than you are at the present moment. Find that goal that pulls you and begin moving toward it.
Why long-term? Because that assures that you will have to invest a lot of time into it. It assures that you have a lot of growth to go through in order to get there. It assures that whenever you get there, you would have made a BIG investment of time, not the equivalent of pennies. Pennies won't make you wealthy.
Now, it must be stressed that living for short-term gratification is a necessity, en-route to achieving long term goals. You need to find pleasure along your road to success. You have to enjoy today and appreciate every moment. So make sure to always take time everyday to do whatever makes you happy.
But the key difference among the few and the majority is that the majority live ONLY for the short-term. They never make that investment of time into their big dream. Their dreams remain just that: dreams.
So find your big dreams if you haven't already. If you already have them, but have done nothing about it, then begin your investment of time TODAY! Plan to invest a little bit of your precious time every single day until you get there.
You don't have to plan every second of your day. Our world changes so rapidly that trying to do so will only lead to total frustration. Plus, you can never factor in the unexpected events that crawl into our lives. However, as you deal with unexpected events, you learn and GROW and become more experienced and efficient for the future.
Always make sure that no matter how your day goes, you invest SOME time into your long-term goals. You can never buy any lost time back at any cost. Time is really more valuable than money will ever be. Do valuable things and you will turn your time into MONEY!