Time Trades
Why pick this topic?
The only time available to us is NOW! Let’s assume thoughts and feelings are constants since they carry a lot of subjective interpretation; what remains then, is continuous packets of value exchanges in units of time/money arising out of repeated interactions with our social sphere.
To add more clarity,
We spend time in two ways (keeping it simple, generalised, replicable),
- by spending money (the most impermeable of forms used to store value)
- by acting on choices that purely demands time (permeable or intangible ones, may/may not be convertible into material form)
For example, say Mr. Bean earns 26,400 units of money per annum at his job. That’s 2200 per month, a 100 per day, and 10 per hour (yeah, Bean is hard working :-) ). This guy now wishes to skip public transport and have his own thing, so he gets this car that costs him 39,600 units of money.
Observe that underlying every unit of money there’s x units of time spent to earn it. Mr. Bean essentially bought his car with 39600/26400=1.5 yrs of blood and sweat at his work (ok, exaggerating to have an eye opener kinda effect :D ), that’s 3,960 hours invested to buy convenience, comfort, and multiple other factors!
Obviously the above example does not exactly resonate for business owners since they front load lot of efforts into creating a self sustaining value accretive system, utilising any or all of these leverage- capital, labour, tech, etc.. Let’s not pick that one here to keep things simple.
You see, like Mr. Bean we too are never inclined towards valuing exchanges purely in terms of time traded. Let’s circle back to see what is the real value lost/gained here- and to keep things absolutely simple, we will not consider multi-tiered causal relationships. Lets assume Mr. Bean saves 15 mins everyday, and expects to do so for next 7 yrs. Now, value in this transaction can be measured in units of net time
Time saved (+)
= time saved in travel
= (7 yrs x 52 weeks x 5 days x 0.25 ) hrs
= 455 hrs
Time consumed (-)
= time taken to earn
= selling price of automobile / hourly wage
= ( 39600 / 10 ) hrs
= 3960 hrs
okay, there are other factors too, above is just a crude representation. Those include,
(-) gas expenses, that further reduces time added
(-) auto loans affects similarly
(foolish) saving more time, but that will require speeding and/or living farther from place of work
(subjective) control over experience, and predictable journey by avoiding public transport
(+) increase life expectancy of the car
Biggest factors of all,
(++) are we able to add more value by performing high valued tasks in those 455 hrs saved, compared to already spent 3960 hrs
(+) anything than can be done to add value during the solo travel, like peacefully listening to audiobooks, catching up with family, friends over handsfree calls etc.
(+) if Mr. Bean is able to increase his per hour wage rate from 10 to 80, we have a breakeven :-). But we all know, such instances are followed by upgrades to a bigger car, home, that does not carry sensitive marginal value, just fits into the flamboyant nature of our society at large- lot done for social approvals!
In summary, above is a classic no brainer, for value negative time trade.
In practice we should just simplify and simplify- focusing on two broad parameters while doing any kind of exchanges
Objective areas,
- Try and enter into value positive time trades only- saves/frees up time
- Strive to pack in more value in the same given time- thereby reaping benefits of slow compounding, that has higher probabilities of increasing our wage rates and/or create a self sustaining system that chugs out value for the society, and allows us to regain free will around time :-)
- Repeat!
Subjective areas,
- Disassociate feelings with material possessions- they are there to make our lives easier, not miserable
- Stop thinking what others might think!.. let them think, lets not make others’ thoughts/judgements our problem.. haha :D .This is one great problem at large- status seekers >> peace lovers !!
