A lot has been written about time vs. money and which is more valuable.
This has me thinking about time gaining interest. Is this possible? How might this happen?
An interest rate on your financial investments is a fixed, annual percentage applied to your money. This can be either an amount you pay (a loan) or an amount you earn (savings). Depending on how much money is involved, the total financial impact can vary.
Application to Time
What if we applied this concept to our time?
While we can’t create or remove hours in the day, we can invest in how we use the hours we have.
What if we considered the “interest rate” over time?
Are there time commitments that might be like the loan – draining – vs. the saving – earning.
Interest rates on loans are often considered wasting money.
With that comparison, we can consider ways in which we waste time: Meetings, email, mindless TV watching/social scrolling (without intent), commuting, cleaning our homes, and more. These often become the excuses for not having time to invest in other things.
On the other side, what are the activities that might be considered like savings accounts. Time that will gain in the future. Learning a new skill or hobby could lead to opportunities and enjoyment in the future. Intentionally planning experiences with family and friends will lead to memories that last a lifetime.
Continuing to make “deposits” like these have the opportunity to gain returns over time.
Your Turn
When you think about the interest rates on your time, which is ahead – the payments out or in?
What could you do to reduce the time drain and focus instead on those areas that will gain interest over time?
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NOTE:
Writing this post reminded me of another angle on money I wrote about a couple years ago that you might find interesting: Investing in Yourself
I also found this infographic when looking at the comparison of time/money value to be very interesting.