Time to Follow Your Passions – Eliminating Future Sorrows of Regret

What would you do if you had the ability to stop time where the entire world around you was frozen in place, but you could still carry on with your normal day?  Would you finally complete your ever-growing “to-do” list?  Catch up on some sleep?  Re-watch the Game of Thrones series yet again?  Much like the dream of winning the lottery, it’s fun to think about, but unfortunately, time is the only resource in life where no matter what you do or what you are willing to sacrifice, you can’t obtain any more than anyone else.   Everyone receives the same 24 hours each day, it just comes down to how you use this most precious resource.

Lately my wife and I have been on a Shark Tank kick in the evenings after the kids go to bed.  The show provides excellent insight into how potential investors think, what they value, and strategies for running a success business.  Billionaire Mark Cuban doesn’t mince words as he declares that his time is what he values most.  He’s very conscientious about how much time he may have to invest in the business opportunities being presented to him and his fellow sharks, in order to realize the type of financial return that would make the endeavor worthwhile.  While it makes perfect sense that millionaires and billionaires are extremely selective about where they choose to spend their hours, it’s a lesson that everyone should learn.

You hear the term “opportunity cost” in business all the time.  If you are spending your time on a particular task, it means you aren’t receiving the benefits of performing other activities during that same period of time.  For example, if a salesperson commits him or herself to traveling to a customer location for a meeting to discuss a business venture, that salesperson is foregoing the benefits of spending that same time prospecting new opportunities for future revenue (this would be the “cost”).  By choosing to hold the in-person meeting with the customer, the salesperson is making an educated decision regarding the respective value of the alternatives.  Both tasks have inherent benefits, but it becomes an assessment of which benefits are perceived as more valuable.

While many of us can clearly identify instances throughout our workday where we have chosen one time devouring undertaking over another, a significant percentage of the population fail to apply these same fundamental time management skills to their personal lives.  Many folks don’t think twice about jumping on Facebook for “a few minutes” to see what their inner circle is up to… only to be surprised that an entire hour has passed!  In today’s world, people seem busier than ever, and many are experiencing elevated levels of stress.  Perhaps if we treated our personal time more like our workday, it would alleviate some of these pressures and anxieties.  What if you took that hour spent on Facebook, for instance, and used it to knock a few things off your to-do list and eliminate the need to think about them any further?  These may include looking into switching car insurance providers to save a few bucks every month, exploring the feasibility of refinancing your mortgage, or putting together a weekly exercise and nutrition plan to kickstart a healthier you.

There are an infinite number of alternatives for how we can spend our time, and it’s up to each individual to determine which alternative and associated benefits are the most valuable at any given moment.  However, it is absolutely crucial that we prioritize our overall mental and physical health above all else.  If spending an hour on Facebook at the end of the day is therapeutic as you try to wind down from a long day, and it doesn’t add any additional stress or unnecessary drama to your life, that might be the best alternative for you at that moment.  Likewise, if you will experience a sense of relief from handling personal matters like calling the credit card company to dispute a bogus charge instead of having it hang over your head as “yet one more thing” you need to address, then that might be your optimal alternative. 

With so much to do and so much we want to do each day, it can be very useful to take an introspective look at how we truly spend our time and see what behaviors and decisions we should avoid in order to maximize our time expenditures.  While the level of perceived value for a specific engagement is unique to each individual, there are many alternatives available to us that are widely viewed as poor producers of constructive outcomes. 

Here are five work related alternatives that have meager benefits at best:

  1. Saying “yes” to everything that’s asked of you and overfilling your proverbial plate.
  2. Attending unimportant meetings that could easily be handled via an email or a phone call.
  3. Not delegating tasks that could easily be performed by a team member.
  4. Simultaneously dividing your focus across multiple tasks (multitasking).
  5. Commuting during rush hour without a plan to be productive (catch up with family and friends with hands-free calling, listen to something educational or inspiring on Audible, reflect on personal/work goals and consider new strategies to employ, etc.).

Here are five personal alternatives that are completely barren of any positive benefits:

  1. Worrying about what others think about you. (“At age 20, we worry about what other people think of us. At age 40, we don’t care what they think of us.  At age 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all.” – Ann Landers).
  2. Complaining about things outside your influence or control.
  3. Focusing on the past. You can’t change what happened, so move on.  Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is unwritten.
  4. Holding grudges.
  5. Procrastinating.
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” - William Penn

Avoiding such benefit-free time drains allows you the ability to create a more fulfilling life as you can devote more effort to your passions.  Unfortunately, as many folks enter into their elderly years, they start thinking back through their lives and what they never got the chance to do… or perhaps more accurately stated, what they never prioritized amongst their time expenditures.  Sadly, even those who appear to have lived pretty full lives, often allow their thoughts at this age to focus on their regrets of what they never accomplished (or attempted) which can overshadow all the great experiences they have amassed.  These regrets can vary drastically but may include not settling down and having kids, never traveling to the country where their family originated, never satisfying their entrepreneurial desires by starting their own business, or never inventing that revolutionary product they conceptualized years ago.

One day I was having a conversation with one of my good friends on this very topic.  It was during this discussion that I discovered he had an app on his phone which I referred to as the “death app.”  Every day a message was available via the app that in some fashion reminded you of your own mortality.  Initially, I thought it was rather morbid, but then I started understanding the goal of the app.  It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the tasks of the day, like figuring out how you are going to cover your monthly bills and devising new tactics to get your kids to do their homework.  The app helps to keep the importance of how we choose to spend our time at the forefront of our minds, so we don’t go through life only checking the boxes society has created for us and not devoting time to pursue our passions.   

No matter what your age, I encourage you to take an objective look at how you currently spend your time, not only in the workplace, but also in your personal life.  I challenge you to commit at least one solid hour each week, without interruption, to engage in something you are passionate about that will lead you down a path of personal fulfilment and growth, while eliminating any future sorrows of regret.  Unfortunately, there’s no stopwatch that halts time, no fountain of youth that restores our formative years, and no magical elixir to extend our mortality.  When it comes to time, we have what we have, and our investment strategy must be wisely executed.

Date Published:  11/16/2020