What if you were told you would be given $86,400 at the start of each day. Wow, great huh. You can spend that amount each day, but at the end of the day, what ever you haven’t spent you loose.
You can’t keep any to spend it the next day, you can’t save it, you can’t invest it for later use, you can only spend it today. You get 24 hours to spend $86,400. The good news is, for now, at the start of each day you will be given another $86,400 and then it starts all over again, but, no matter what you do, that is all you get.
Are you thinking about all those things you would buy or places you might go, but, opppps, you actually don’t have time to use the entire amount, or do you? Well it doesn’t really matter because one way or the other it is either going to be spent, or time will spend it for you.
So, where would you spend it?
86,400. That is how many seconds we are given each day. We don’t get any more, and at the end of the day, anything we haven’t used we loose. The next day we get another 86,400 seconds to use at our discretion, but that’s it. You can’t invest it (at least here on earth), you can’t save it, and for now, we get a new 86,400 seconds tomorrow to use. So…….. where do you spend it?
I haven’t had a lot of time to blog here lately for various reasons but it got me started thinking about what steals our time. My wife always says we have time for what we make time for, and I think that is basically true. We prioritize throughout the day even if we don’t realize we are doing it, and it controls what we get accomplished or what gets left for “tomorrow”.
I have several projects going on at the same time, including developing my first true CMS site for a niche market, and that is what is taking a lot of my free time as of late, but I think there are several things that steal our time throughout the day. Some are our own doing, some we can’t control, some we can. I made a quick list of what steals my time as of this writing, in regards to this blog. Steals your time probably isn’t the best way to describe it. A better way it where do we spend our 86,400 seconds we are given each day?
Other Blogs
I do write on other blogs and trying to keep up with each one doesn’t always work. The one that gets the most attention is the one that has the highest priority at the time.
Work or Projects
Yes, I guess we all do have to work at something. This may be a necessity but it does take up a majority of our time (as it should) and it usually takes priority over non-revenue generating projects
Family (and Friends)
This is another good thing, but also one that keeps me from blogging on this blog. Over the Thanksgiving holiday I had planned to have a quiet week and get a good weeks worth of articles written for this blog. What did I do, I spent most of it working outside on our property with my dad. Worth far more to me than getting the articles done I had in mind. I also ate a little turkey and watched a lot of football.
Not Being Well Organized
This is something we can control but being well organized will keep things running smoothly. I started keeping a log book of things I needed to get done or have done. It sits on my desk right by my computer and I jot things down on it all day. When I travel, I have a miniature version I take with me. It does help me stay a little organized.
This is a big one for most of us. I have read 100 blog posts on how you should not check your email every 5 minutes, and it is probably true, but I just can’t do it. I usually spend a good majority of my time each day in email or having something to do with email.
Your Feed Reader
This is probably one of the areas you could spend a ton of time looking at, and writing this blog, I hope you do, but I try to read my feeds at night after the day’s work is complete. This doesn’t always work, but there are so many great articles to read that it can take a huge amount of time.
Watching TV or Other Entertainment
We all watch TV or do some form of entertainment. I am a big sports fan and I can always find a game to watch. Even if there isn’t a game on, ESPN Classics is probably re-playing some great rivalry game from 1982. I don’t usually spend to much time on these items, but they can take up time that you don’t spend doing more productive things (unless you can figure out a way to do both at the same time).
Internet Social Sites, Groups, News, General Surfing
Don’t think I even need to elaborate here. Just try to do the most productive things each day in the order of priority. If you make your living on the social networks, great, if not, look at these areas when you are finished with your work each day.
Where Do You Spend Your 86,400 Seconds Each Day?
So, those are just a few. What areas use up time each day for you? I think each of us can probably look at some areas where we could probably spend our time more wisely, I know I can. Leave a comment below and let me know what those are for you?
3 responses to “What Would You Do With an $86,400 Gift?”
Initially i thought you were talking about the money.Silly me.86,400s is not alot of time. There should be a way we can extend the time we have in a day. Maybe we can get a faster internet connection so we can save some time when surfing. We could also write shorter blog posts so we could spend more time with our kids. And we can keep our comments shorter so we can comment on more blogs. great post.
i spend a majority of my time working. consulting, blogging, email, etc… i definitely don’t allocate much “me” time. hopefully this will change very soon since i’m scaling back in-house hours in january. great post
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