Syed Nasir Ershad

Who has not heard the proverb ‘Time and tide wait for none’, surely all of us know about the value of time. But alas! Most of us do not give attention to proper use of time. I believe everybody would agree that success in life largely depends on the best use of time. Then again, not all uses of time are equal and this simple truth can make a big difference in life.
People who spend their time doing more profitable work make more money. People who spend their time investing in others build better relationships. People who spend their time creating a flexible career enjoy more freedom. People who spend their time working on high-impact projects contribute more to society. Whether you want more wealth, more friendship, more freedom, or more impact, it all comes down to how you spend your time. We would probably want the things listed above (friendship, freedom, impact) and others too (health). But it is not possible to have everything at once, so we need to understand how to effectively manage the tradeoffs that we face on a day-to-day basis.
At some level, we all have an internal gauge for how much our time is worth. For example, if someone offers to pay me Taka 10/- for one hour of work, I would immediately decline. Meanwhile, if someone offers to pay me Taka 1,000/- for one hour of work, I would immediately accept. On extreme ends of the spectrum, it is easy to know if a task is worth our time. As we move toward the middle of the time-value spectrum, however, it becomes less clear if a particular task is worth my time or not. And this is the problem: most of life is lived in the gray zone of the time-value spectrum. We make choices like these every day, but most people base their decisions on gut feelings or guesswork and never calculate what their time is actually worth. Everyone has an hourly value, but very few people can actually tell you what that number is.
Everyone faces this time vs. money dilemma, consciously or subconsciously. We may measure the total amount of time we invest to earn money, not just the hours we are physically at work. For example, if we spend two hours commuting to work each day and eight hours at work, then it costs us ten hours to earn money that day. Also we should add any time we spend working on a side hustle or do shopping or drop our kids off at grandmother’s place. Using these numbers, we may get a complete picture of the total amount of time we invest each year to earn money.
Let us take the example of spending ten hours per day either at work, commuting to work, or doing tasks related to work. With a five day workweek, that is fifty hours per week. And if we work fifty weeks per year (two weeks off for vacation), then that is two thousand five hundred hours per year. If I am able to meet the expenditures of my family with the earnings from working that many hours, personally I may feel that I am doing alright. However, merely earning bread is not enough. In addition to meeting the physical requirements, we need to satisfy our souls also to live a well dignified and happy life. Because, life is not only about bread and butter but also about rainbow and flower.

[To be continued]