Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that compound interest is the foundation of investing. But what does compounding have to do with the other 8 hours? A great deal. How you invest your other 8 hours determines your happiness and financial success. If you squander this critical time, it’s like putting $50 under your mattress. It won’t provide you with any return. For that $50 to grow, it must be invested. For your time to grow, it must also be invested. We’ve been told that time is money. But is it possible that time can make more time? You can use the other 8 hours to increase your skills to make more money or become more efficient. If you make more money, you can invest the money and benefit from compounding interest. But if you use your time to become more efficient, you can also invest it and benefit from compounding time.
Let’s see how this works. If you learn a tip that cuts the time you spend doing laundry by 30 minutes each week, you could reinvest some of that time in learning more skills that will help you become more efficient. With the time you save from learning new skills that make you more efficient, you can reinvest some of that time, and so on and so on. You should be investing your time in activities that pay the highest returns — whether the returns are financial, physical, spiritual, etc. Those returns you earn are then able to produce even more results. Keep in mind that it’s not just about money. Compounding works across all areas of life. It’s the idea of investing wisely to produce a benefit — and of that benefit producing even more benefits.
Here’s an exercise example: You want to lose weight, but you’re not sure you know the best way. You could spend 40 minutes a day on a treadmill, but as soon as you get off the treadmill you stop burning calories. That is, one minute on the treadmill produces one minute of benefit, but that’s where the fat burning benefits stop. Or, you could replace your daily treadmill routine twice a week with lifting weights. What does this do for you? You increase lean muscle mass by lifting weights, which then burns more calories, even when you’re watching TV, sleeping, etc. If you build lean muscles, the time you spend in the gym continues to pay dividends even after you leave. In order to get the most bang from your investment of time, you want to focus on not just those activities that produce a current benefit (e.g., treadmill) but on those activities that will (or at least have the potential to) produce exponential returns in the future. For a limited time, you can download several free resources (assessment, poster, audio interview, video, and more) at www.other8hours.com and learn more about my new book, The Other 8 Hours: Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth and Purpose. Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter! Related Articles: The 21 Habits of Healthy People The Benefits of Meditation
Fact 1: A body will only change when we give it a reason to.
Fact 2: Most people don’t (give their body a reason to change).
Most people who exercise regularly are following a maintenance program. They don’t know it, but they are. That is, they regularly stress (stimulate) their body the same (or a very similar) way, day in, day out. Often, year in, year out. The same exercises. Same machines. Same program. Same sets, reps, resistance, intensity, time, speed, incline, recovery time. Same everything. And eventually they wind up with… the same body. That is: no change. And why doesn’t their body change? Because they haven’t given it a reason to change. Most people continue doing the same thing (stimulating their body the same way) while simultaneously hoping for a different (better) result.
I’m a firm believer in working smarter, not harder. If there are smarter ways of working, rather than working more than the time needed on a task, then I say go for it. Having the knowledge is the key. How do we know that we are working smarter? Reading, networking, and gaining the knowledge of what worked for other people. There’s no use re-investing the wheel when proven strategies are out there for us to learn from.
Compounding interest for time management, just like the money analogy, will reap huge benefits for our future selves.
Wow Well Explained. I really thank for giving valuable insights. I do use Pocket Coach to improve productivity on a daily basis.
[...] provide you with any return. For that $50 to grow, it must be invested. For your…” http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/compounding-time-create-more-free-time-by-investing-it-wisely/ Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
[...] Compounding Time: Mаkе More Free Time bу Investing іt Wisely – PickTheBrai… [...]
[...] Compounding Time: Creating More Free Time by Investing It Wisely (Pick the Brain) [...]
Thank you for the ideas Robert. So much of our time is spent running around in chaos that it’s a welcome relief when we learn how to prioritize and focus on doing one thing at a time. Once we complete something we can move on to the next thing and get as many tasks done as we wish. It also helps to celebrate what we’ve completed.