Finding Time. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

June 16 / 4PM

I'm finding less time these days to do the things that I so readily took for granted during my high school years. It's sad but true that with age comes responsibility and with responsibility comes the trade-off of prioritizing the things you have to do over the thing's you want to do.

I'd like to head home tonight after work, pop a brew, and Al Bundy my hand down my pants on the couch without a care in the world. In reality, the laundry needs to be done, the dishes are piling up, I could wallpaper my bathroom with my stack of unpaid parking tickets that need paying, and the cat needs to be kicked fed.

Life moves at a lightning clip these days. It's no surprise then that sites like Lifehacker, lifehack.org, and StevePavlina.com are getting Dugg, read, and digested like gang-busters.

At 26 years of age, I'm finding that time truly is the greatest and most valuable resource. That point is made all the more clear to me as I watch a list of lifetime to-do's grow larger by the day.

In one of the few college courses I took in my unsuccessful attempt at becoming the quintessential college mooch, we were taught the concept of Opportunity Cost. In time-management terms, it basically boils down to this: every block of time you allot to one thing means you're not allotting that block of time to something else. I know, I know: "Duh." When it's laid out in black and white like this, it seems so obvious. However I'm shocked to find that many people just don't think this way.

My colleagues and I were discussing this point the other day and the classic anecdote of coupon clippers was mentioned. You know: those crazy OCD-types that spend five scissor-handed hours every week to save $7.60 at the grocery store. This is a textbook example of someone who doesn't understand Opportunity Cost.

Put it this way: figure out what you make on an hourly basis. That's how much your time is worth. If it takes you five hours to houseclean while you could be making $20/hr at work, it just "cost" you $100 to clean your house. Or five hours of your life you'll never get back. However you want to look at it, it's six of one, half-dozen of the other. If your friendly house cleaner can do the same job for $50, you could be saving $50. Get it?

Time is money. The difference being that money is a renewable resource. You can always make more money, but time is limited. It's precious. Make the best of it. Hire a maid. Or a gardener. Or someone to wash your scivys. By god, that's what the service industry is there for!