This picture was chosen very deliberately – Ben Franklin was exceptional in terms of his time management philosophies, and of course he’s on some USD currency here that is set aflame. Are time, money, and energy all related? In an entropic manner? Could you provide direction across these three forces and invest into them to harness the relationship between them?
There are a few related topics involving time, money, and energy that I’m currently digging into. All three concepts are in effect currencies to be exchanged for something of value.
I have even read recently some new thinking – for me anyway – that has equated money with energy. I’m still pondering this one, and will have some things to say about this idea down the line. Even as I consider this as a concept, being that I’m ‘energy guy‘ – I think we can take this one step further with this notion of a triad of currencies.
I am sure you heard of the cliche that time is money. Many of us likely are trading our weekdays with this notional thinking at our core.
What if you thought of your life as being invested into your career?
What if this investment of your life is paid off in terms of money, time, and energy?
Money ROI: I’m sure you you know the ROI in terms of your paycheck and benefits, and you can likely figure out your hourly pay rate. I recently did this exercise for the first time since I was pulling down an hourly-based wage back in my 20’s. Many times, the role and the career are measured in financial only terms.
Time ROI: What about your ROI in terms of time invested into your career / day to day job? Is it wash? Is it a net positive for you? Or is it a net negative? How many meetings have you left where someone, possibly even yourself, has said –
“Well, I’ll never get that hour back of my life…”
Well, that’s an example of a negative ROI and of an hour burned.
Energy ROI: Finally, when you think of your energy ROI – how does that resonate when you leave work each day?
You ever hear someone talking at your workplace about the nearness of today in relation to the weekend?
“Two more days to the weekend” or ‘Thank God it’s Friday”
If you hear these refrains from a coworker – chances are that they are not energetically ramping through the week given their job, and there’s a strong chance the day to day of their job and of their careers are weakening their energetic posture.
Don’t get me wrong – some weeks are complete ass kickers – and you are running on fumes when Friday rolls around. I’m referring to a chronic belief that some have that you live for the weekend, and this is likely tied to an unhealthy role/job that is not really aligned with your needs/wants.
So the examples interleaved above are solely focused on an ’employer/employee job’ dimension of life. However, the interplay of time, money, and energy can be applied to any area if you stop for a moment to think about it.
Let’s look at your family life with a scenario being a big family vacation. You can look at it in terms of the financials (costs and savings), time (distance to get there and back as an example), and energy payback.
As an example – the energy payback could be a major hit because you have really young children and you know that the flight to Europe is going to be a nightmare – let alone the time difference, let alone the return flights being just as bad in terms of overhead. I know because I’ve done that trip a time or two with a very young family, and it is a beating.
So you take a look at the financials, the time you will have, and the energy consumed or saved – take a look at the tradeoffs in terms of costs/benefits – ultimately landing upon a value you place on the investment of these three factors.
If the value is compelling enough – you will invest your time, money, and energy to make this family vacation happen. Sometimes you may even be fortunate enough to have others willing to invest into this event for you – perhaps by helping with airfare, perhaps by helping you with the kids by flying with you, and in terms of energy – perhaps arranging to help you with some chores around the house prior to your return from the trip.
Another example in a different dimension of life – perhaps you have a home that you are intending to purchase.
Let’s play with this example for a second or two…
Money ROI: The financials are many times the underpinning and dominant factor in the purchase, or dare I say it again – investment. The financials can be considered both as a one time event and as an ongoing continual financial equation either because of mortgage arrangements and/or because of expected appreciation.
Time ROI: What if the property you are looking will cut your commute by a half hour? What if the property is going to take 2 years to build upon? What if the property is an exceptionally convenient arrangement where you are in a master community with all of the landscaping and upkeep accounted for?
Energy ROI: To finish off this scenario – what if the property was a townhome that was connected to another townhome with a shared living room wall? Could you envision a scenario where this could induce some stress? How about a personal dream scenario with a property on the ocean that could afford you a daily swim in the ocean? Talk about enriching your energy output.
So the factors get combined, perhaps even weighted a bit differently depending upon the needs in your life at that time and you arrive at a value. In terms of this last example it is easy to see both the short term value proposition and the longer term value proposition when you consider purchasing a home.
This is a big-time, tangible transaction that really hits upon these three factors being combined to determine a value prop.
I believe new possibilities exist if you start to think of your life in terms of an investment portfolio that can be invested into and exchanged based upon a variety of currencies.
Today I’m using these three as the primary currencies on my mind, although I’m sure there are other currencies to consider. I am showing my business bias here with the metaphor, admittedly.
Well, I’m going to leave you with a few questions to ponder while I set towards answering a few of these in future posts that you will see in a bit.
- What is the ideal ratio and conversion in terms of time to money that I am willing to accept?
- What is the ideal ratio of time to energy?
- What is the ideal ratio of money to energy for me?
- Do these ratios change depending upon the decision being evaluated?
- Do you know your desired ‘exchange rate’ for each of these ratios? Do you know your ‘floor’ for an exchange to actually happen?
- Are there scenarios where none of this ratio based thinking matters – you have some ‘must do’s’ that you are never going to negotiate upon? If so, keep track of these items for a later post…
- If these concepts can be thought of as currencies – do some analogous concepts tied to currencies also apply?
- Can I compound my energy and time just I can with my money? (this was the original premise of this post)
- Do I think of these concepts as ‘spend first, invest/save later’ or ‘invest/save first, spend later?’
- Does the ‘first / later’ paradigm change depending upon the factor? For example, you are a penny pincher with your cash, but you are careless with your time?
- Can I run an audit and perform an accounting of the amount of current currency levels for each factor?
- How is my dissonance and consistency when I consider these factors? For example, Do I have tons of energy and tons of time for example? Am I bargain hunter where I’m spending my cash – based upon a budget, yet my schedule is unknown from day to day?
- How can I be more effective in investing across all three of these currencies?
- How can I achieve more compounding results across these three currencies? Is there a relationship between the compounding effect here?
- What else factors into value beyond these three currencies?
And now for the most important question of all of these up until now – this is seemingly where magic comes into play:
What is the most effective way to transmute energy, money, and time to enable the most value?
There are a number of resources out there that are attempting to answer parts of this question. I’m spending some time thinking through a few different angles on this question…
And a closing set of questions to tip this whole thing over, building upon this notion of value – this is where I’ve been building towards for a few months….
How do you intend to maximize the value of your investments?
Are you oriented towards a meaning-based definition or a happiness-based definition of a fulfilled life?
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