Time is the great equaliser

Everybody gets credit of 24 hours a day

Over the last week, I’ve listened to a podcast, and one of the segments hit me hard. It said two apparent truths we all know but not put together. First, it takes a long time to make great things. You know, now a cliche, the 10,000 hours to mastery. I’ve never taken it with the context that my time is limited. I’m 37 now. I have a very limited number of 10,000 hours left.

So today, you’ll read about prioritisation and hard choices. How to make the most of the 24 hours I get each day, and a $10,000 framework to help you with that.

You can’t be everything

Elon Musk, The Pope, you and me. All have 24 hours each day. Each decides how to spend it every morning we wake up.

In the world of information overload, it’s easy to get distracted by the many things happening around us. You can be a Software Engineer, a TikToker or watch the next great TV series on Netflix. The problem is that our lives aren’t infinite.

We need to make hard choices, and the time doesn’t care. Just like Earth doesn’t care if someone thinks it’s flat or not. It just is. It takes time to get good at something. What you do is choose what it is.

If you want to be a great parent, you prioritise time with your kids over spending long hours at work. If you want a great career, you prioritise learning over watching Netflix for the whole evening. You can decide what you want to do and what you want to get good at. You can decide to audit your calendar and start spending time most efficiently.

And there is one way I know how you can free a lot of your time.

Time is money

And money is time.

I’ve learned this in the last couple of months. You can buy time. This allows you to spend yours on the things that matter the most.

I pay for most of my learning, even when I know I can find it for free online. The reason is that I pay for other people’s time categorising the information I need and the experience they have gathered over the years.

You can spend money on other people’s time: learning, cleaning, grocery shopping, you name it. Just the shopping saves me at least 2 hours a week. It cost me maybe £10 in total. It's a small price to pay if you ask me.

That’s how you trade money for time. I spend 30 min of work to get the money I need to pay for 2 hours. As long as you time positive, you’re winning.

The $10000/h framework

Let’s take it to another level - a framework for you to start thinking differently about your time.

There are three categories of time:

• $10,000/h

• $100/h

• $10/h

The things you want to do the most. The things that are good for you and the time wasters.

You want to be as much as possible in the first category. It can be the time spent with your children. It can be working on your business idea. Or it’s getting your dream career.

You need to avoid time in the two other categories. $100/h can be your current job. You can’t avoid it, but taking long hours may not be the greatest idea. You may think about changing careers to free your time. You can invest in new skills to get paid more.

The most important is to avoid the $10/h category like a plague. Like in the example of learning. Watching random videos on YouTube, hoping the next one will give you the answer you need, wastes your time. Find someone who knows the topic, and ask them what to watch. Pay them for the effort they made to figure it out for you.

You spend your $10 to gain time in your $10,000 zone. I call it a good investment.

That’s the secret

The difference between successful people and those who struggle is not the amount of time they have. They all have the same. The difference is in how they spend their time.

One will spend it on the things that matter the most to them and on skills that free their time. Others won’t even be aware of how they use it.

You’re now in the first category. You know what matters and how to make decisions about your time. It’s the first step towards the life you want to have.

P.S.

If you're a Software Engineer and

✅ Want peace of mind about your career progression
✅ Looking for clarity on what to do next
✅ You want to save time figuring them out

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Book a discovery call today. I don’t want you to miss that offer!