How to value your time
How I discovered how to value my time and get my life back
A few years ago I was seriously in a rut. I spent most of my time working, and the rest I spent thinking about work. This is how I learnt how to value my time and start living my best life.
Of course I had to pay the bills and luckily I also enjoyed what I did, but I also knew it was time to ask myself a few home truth questions. Did I really value my own time and how could I turn things around for the better?
I found loads of advice about how I might value my time. Advice on how I should be more productive, develop my career, build a business, be more mindful, spend time with family, spend time alone, spend time on hobbies and spend time learning. None of these resonated with me, they seemed to miss the most basic question — why, what was it all for?
Many of the inbuilt assumptions behind what I read didn’t resonate with me. Was I too stressed? Was I driven by promises of a higher salary? Did I really have the ideal balance of life? I suspected that answer to the first two was ‘not really’ and I knew the answer to the last one was no.
I am an analytical person. I’ve spent a lifetime in IT and I like asking questions. I’m sure some people think I’m disagreeable but usually I genuinely just want to know more.
I decided that what I needed to do was to first understand how I really spent my time. This is the process I went through and how I figured how what had to change.
Step one— I figured out what
I listed everything I spent my time on, and things I thought I should spend time on. Work was there of course, but also housework, socialising, reading and other things I think are on my to-do list. It felt awkward when I realised how many things I wrote down that I couldn’t recall doing for ages.
Step two — I asked why
Against each item I wrote why I thought I did (or should do) the activity. Not just the obvious reason but the real reason or reasons for me. Work was a great example, I worked for money but I also knew it boosted my self-esteem and there was a social side I enjoyed as well.
Some of the reasons I uncovered were my own curiosity, my health, enjoyment of the activity itself, working towards future goals and enjoyment of or pride in of the results. I had to admit that as much as I dislike doing housework I do like adding a sense of cleanliness and order to my house.
Step three — I asked who benefitted
I found this a tough question to answer. As with the ‘why’ there was generally more than one person or organisation gaining from my time. I also decided to adopt a split personality for this question and separated me now from ‘future me’.
The question of who benefits wasn’t so much about spending more time on me but seeing if I really gave priority in my life to those I wanted to. I also didn't want to fall into the trap of being resentful for spending time on something that was no true benefit to anyone. Again my first response was not always my final decision, what we think we do for someone else can really be about enhancing our own environment or stroking our ego. Once we can accept that we really do something for our selves then we can make a better choice of whether we carry on, spend less time on it or perhaps abandon it altogether.
Step four — I tracked my time
How much time per day, week or month did I actually spend on each thing?
I didn’t count actual hours, most items had ‘most lunchtimes’, ‘long days’, ‘maybe an hour a month’ but it was fairly simple to put something against everything. Some items made me want to act immediately. I found I had “almost never” against things with my strongest “why” with clear benefit to me and those close to me.
I revisited these steps a few times as I realised that there were things I’d missed, sometimes I found myself reacting to a task in a way I hadn't thought about and I changed a couple of “whys” and “who benefits” but generally my first instinct was right.
Step five —action
Once I had got a handle on where I was actually spending my time it helped me make sense of things. I could see that I spent too long on things which were neither a great value to me nor anyone I cared about so I set better boundaries. I started making more time for things that mattered to me, including relaxing and a bit of doing nothing — creative ideas sometimes need a bit of space to grow. I realised some areas of my life had more value than I had admitted and started to appreciate them more.
What next
I made some quite major changes in my life which wouldn’t have been possible a few years before but I still look at and review this list from time to time. It’s a bit like checking the map on a touring holiday. There are places you want to be and unexpected opportunities that present themselves which may be too good to miss. I believe there are times to get on the motorway and get some miles in, there are times to get off it and take in the journey.
My work life has changed, and that took some sorting out. My leisure time now includes poetry as well as reading about and sharing my interests in women’s history. These are the things that I’ll share in my blogs here, which differs from those I share on my company website. So now I have a place and a time for everything.
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