TIME – we all have the same amount of it, it’s what we do with it that counts.
When you’re running your own business it’s easy to get caught up in everything and you end up running round like a headless chicken! This often starts because you are time-rich and cash-poor in the early days and it feels like it’s cheaper to do jobs yourself rather than pay someone else to do them. That might be the case when you have time to spare but as things pick up and your time gets more precious (the clue’s there!) you need to rethink the view that your time is cheaper than someone else’s just because you’re not having to part with cash.
In another article I will talk about the physical value of your time (ie. in money) but today I want to share with you a short story that has been around for a long time and you may well have come across it before, but it’s worth another read just to remind you how valuable your time is and that it’s worth taking a second thought about what you’re doing with it.
Imagine there is a bank which credits your account each morning. It carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day.
What would you do? Draw out every penny, of course! Well, every person has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.
Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever you have failed to invest to good purpose.
It carries over no balance.
It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you.
Each night it burns the remains of the day.
If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.
There is no going back. There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!
The clock is running. Make the most of today.
To realise the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who has failed an exam.
To realise the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realise the value of ONE WEEK, ask an editor of a weekly newspaper or a football manager.
To realise the value of ONE DAY, ask someone who is on minimum wages and has just been made redundant.
To realise the value of ONE HOUR, ask a starving child in Africa.
To realise the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who has missed the train.
To realise the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who has just avoided a serious accident.
To realise the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.
Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it today with someone special, special enough to have your time.
And remember time waits for no one . . .
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present!
If you want help to work out what you’re actually doing with your time, which tasks you should be delegating and how you can do that (particularly if you don’t have a team) join my FREE online ‘Find Your Time Challenge’ here.
