How to Multiply Time | #17

How to Multiply Time

No. 17 — read time 4 minutes
Welcome to The Soloist, a weekly newsletter where I provide actionable ideas to help you become a healthy, wealthy, sovereign entrepreneur.

Today, I'd like to discuss a concept I've coined the Time Value of Time.

Those of you who work in (or understand) finance are familiar with the concept of Time Value of Money (TVM).

For everyone else, TVM is the idea that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future, because of opportunity cost — i.e. sacrifice.

If I have a dollar today I can choose to do with it what I want, but by agreeing to get a dollar in the future, I forfeit some of my options.

To compensate me for that forfeiting, I expect interest.

It’s the bedrock of the entire financial system.

While Martin de Azpilcueta wrote about the time value of money and its importance in 1556 and Sir Isaac Newton formalized the first quantitative model for it in the 17th century, the idea dates back to the days of Babylon.

But how do we think about the opportunity cost of time itself?

We understand that 1 hour TODAY is worth more than 1 hour in a DECADE.

I wrote about it here:

Everyone’s goal should be to become better allocators.

Not just of our capital, but our time.

Time is finite.

Time moves in only one direction.

And time waits for no man or woman.

Eventually, we all get older. Our children get older. And our grandparents and parents pass way.

But so many of us waste time while obsessing over how to get a few extra percentage points on a savings account. Here's why:

Money is easier to quantify

• You can log into your accounts and see the number - is it up or down

• Not having money becomes is stressful and becomes top of mind

• Western society has trained us to worship money

But this one concept might offer a solution.

If you want to multiply your time to be able to enjoy random alone time, impromptu trips with your kids, and the space to create when you want to create, you need to figure out how to multiply your time.

Eliminate

Most of the things we keep on our to-do list is simply not important.

The Eisenhower Matrix is a good starting point to figure out what’s not important, but my hunch is you probably know if you’re honest with yourself.

Automate

If you’re not using AI yet, you should.

But automation isn’t just AI.

It’s investing a couple hours to automate bill pay, savings, and investments once so that it works on auto-pilot every month for you.

It’s learning how  Zapier  works to connect different tools you use to speed things up.

Automation is like having a robot army at your disposal and yet so many people don’t take advantage of one of the biggest benefits of living in the 21st century.

Some things you could start automating today:

1. Email management ( Superhuman ,  Hey )

2. Scheduling ( Cal.com , Calendly)

3. Social media management ( Tweethunter ,  Typefully )

4. Data entry (Zapier, IFTT)

5. Personal finance management (Empower formerly Personal Capital,  Copilot )

6. Task reminders (Apple Reminders,  Todoist ,  Notion )

7. Research ( Chat-GPT )

Delegate

Finally, whatever is left after you’ve eliminated and delegated is your discretion.

If the work left is inspiring or something you’re uniquely good at doing, by all means keep it.

But if the answer is no, consider delegating.

A buddy of mine runs The Personal Finance podcast.

He has +6M downloads so far and started video recording the podcasts to be able to repurpose the content on YouTube and TikTok.

He also has a 4 yr old and a 2 yr old at home.

Do you think he knows how to edit his videos and get them ready to be shared on social media?

Probably.

Do you think he does that?

Not a chance.

He hires an editor that he found on  Upwork  which costs him about $100 per video.

Highest and Best Use

The obsession with work for work's sake gets us in trouble.

It's how we start letting things like our health, our relationships, and our family slip.

And as we know, we can't get our time back.

The only solution we have is to borrow a page from the world of real estate and start asking:

"Is this the highest and best use of my time?"

The framework above should at least give us a start.

Till next week,

– Tom

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

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