***YOUR Time

Question, what is the resource that you cannot acquire more of?

Do you think it is money? Do you think it is a specific type of skilled labor or a certain type of raw material? NO! Although you or your company might be feeling financially challenged you can find ways to earn money, you can find labor and other resources. The answer is T-I-M-E, TIME!

Yes this question is paraphrased from a project management exam. But today our discussion about time as a resource goes well beyond project management. You may not like to think about it, but you only have a certain amount of time in your day, in your month, in your year and here is the difficult one – in your life. Time is limited. Unless you have mastered time travel, the amount of time available to you is finite. There are 60 minutes in one hour and 24 hours in a day, that is it. And you only have so much time available to you in this lifetime.

With access to online banking, you can check your savings and checking accounts. You can see how much money you have left. You can read life expectancy tables and you can look at your family history and make an educated guess about how long you might live. But you do not know for certain how long you will be here.

What is the point? The point is time is YOUR precious resource. Time allows you to learn a skill and advance in your career, time allows you to earn money and to take a break away from earning that money on a vacation. Time is what you give (I hope) to your friends, family and other loved ones. I hope you take some time for yourself too!

I repeat time is YOUR resource. YOU decide what to do with your time. Many of the people in your life have strong ideas about how you should use your time. “You should go to this class” or “You should come with us on this outing” or “You should spend more time….” I think you get the picture. Think of it this way, do you routinely just open up your checkbook and hand it to anybody and say, “Go ahead, write whatever checks you want for however much you want?” Probably not. (But if you do, please let me know.)

We have all heard the stories about ‘bucket lists’ (things to do before you die also known as kicking the bucket) and of people making huge changes in their lives when faced with near death experiences or terminal illness. Why wait? Each day could be your last. This is far less morbid than you think, in fact it is truly freeing. If each day you spend your time as-if it were your last day on earth, you would really understand your priorities and the value of your time. It would make decision making easier. Try it.

It’s YOUR time, what are YOU going to do with it?