Time isn’t money so relax – It is far more important.

You spend time like you spend money, the only difference being that you can replace and re-spend the money but you cannot replace and re-spend time.

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Time is incredibly valuable; it is the only commodity that can be used only once and so it is essential to spend it wisely.

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Why Read:

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5 Minutes spent now might just save many, many hours of your valuable time in the future. This article looks at 5 investment tips for your time and will be the last one I am posting for a few days as I get myself settled in Thailand.

“Dost though love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of”

-Benjamin Franklin

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5 investment tips for your time.

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1. Plan:

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Possibly the most important rule for not wasting time.

Planning for just 10 minutes the evening before will ensure you can pretty much double/triple and quadruple the amount you get done the next day and limit the amount of time you waste.

Planning is great for two things: focussing on what is important and limiting wasted time on tasks that are neither important nor urgent.

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Planning doesn’t need to be extensive or elaborate, simply working out the key tasks that need to be accomplished helps to focus a productive day.

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Picture it as the most effective way to fill a bucket with stones. Put the large ones in first, then the smaller ones then the sand, in this way you will fit a lot more into the same space then with any other combination, it is the same with time management. Important tasks first, then the next important and finally the least important if there is time left over. It’s simple but amazing how few people follow this simple rule.

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2. The Pareto (80/20) Rule:

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The Pareto Rule states that 20% of the input creates 80% of the output, which also means that 80% of subsequent effort is used for the remaining 20%. This can be applied across almost anything.

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In business 20% of the clients tend to generate 80% of the turnover, 20% of your workforce tend to do 80% of the work, 20% of the solutions can usually solve 80% of the problems etc.

Try and apply this to your own life, if you’re a perfectionist you may struggle with this one.

For example lets take housecleaning, if you usually spend 5 hours doing the house cleaning a week try only doing 1 hour focusing on the big sections. Using the Pareto principle , it won’t be as clean as before but you’ll be 80% there and you have just saved yourself 4 hours , and you probably won’t notice the difference.

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3. 25/5 Rule:

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The most productive way to work is in time blocks of two hours split into four 25minute sections with 5minute breaks interspersed. 25mins, 5 minute break, 25minutes, 5 minutes…you get the idea.

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This is because over time your understanding of the subject matter you are studying increases but your ability to recall the information falls.

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Basically, the longer you work in one go the more you will understand how everything fits together but the less likely you will be able to remember specific facts. When studying it is best to take a 5 minnute break every 25 minutes and work in two hour blocks because this gives you the very best of both recall and understanding.

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4. The “don’t watch anything twice rule”.

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Granted, the name needs a little work. TV and movies are not always a bad thing but they can become a massive waste of time if you keep watching programs or films you have already watched.

I tend to be really bad at this and will watch and re-watch films and tv shows even when I can practically repeat every line word for word.

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A simpsons episode there, a bit of Lost and the Spiderman movie for the third time and you’ve spent almost 3 very unproductive hours.

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Try setting yourself the challenge of going a week without watching something you have already seen, then try a month and then if your really hardcore try a year.

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5. Set Personal Deadlines:

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When you set a deadline, whether large or small it is amazing how much you can get accomplished.

Get into the habit of setting time goals for achieveing tasks and keep to them. For example, personally I like to schedule 30 mins a day to keep up to date with facebook and my personal email. If I’m blog searching I set myself an hour max to surf.

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This focuses my mind to only concentrating on the very best stories and getting the key points.

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If I had no deadline I could easily spend 3-4 hours just browsing and would probably come away with not much more if not less then with my hour power stint.

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Your time is important, it is yours to use wisely or waste.