How We Spend Our Discretionary Time Determines Our Future.

The chart above shows how ordinary people spend their time. They typically spend five of their eight-hour blocks of time working, seven of them sleeping, and have nine left over as discretionary time, which we call spare time. But, seriously, work and sleep are mandatory for most people, but what you do with your discretionary or spare time is up to you…. or is it? What you earn with your work time has everything to do with what you can do with your spare time. If your knowledge and skills at work hours can earn you $3000 per week, you will be able to enjoy your spare time much more than if they only earn you $300 per week, which brings us to the biggest secret to developing a Richman Mindset. There is something you can do with time other than spend it: you can invest it!

If you have a typical work week, like most people, you have 72 hours of discretionary time. Let’s see how most people spend this time. You might spend two hours per day — some people spend more — getting up, getting dressed, and getting to and from work. Based on a five-day work week, that uses up 10 hours but leaves you with 62. You may not do it, but a lot of people spend another couple of hours per day, every day, lying in bed sleeping, or just doing nothing. Whether or not you do this, let’s allocate the time anyway, which takes up another 14 hours per week, but still leaves you with 48 hours. Throw in another couple of hours per day for eating, bathing, and grooming and now you’re down to 34, but everyone has other things they need or want to do, so let’s allocate another three or more hours per day, every day, to things like watching television, playing video games, golf, tennis, jogging, housework, laundry or other chores and, suddenly you have only 13 hours remaining. Of this time, let’s allocate eight hours to your church, civic or charitable activities and you’re now down to just five hours per week. In the above description, you are spending a good portion of your spare time doing nonproductive things. You will realize that you have the discretion to change how you use many of these hours, but for the benefit of this example, even if you live just as described in the example, it is better to “invest” these few remaining hours to become financially independent.

Before you started thinking like, “ I don’t lie around in bed doing nothing,” or “ I only sleep six hours a day,” or “ It only takes me 30 minutes to get ready and get to and from work” or any of the hundreds of other circumstances that explain why the above example doesn’t apply to you, stop and think about what you do. If you don’t need as long to get ready and get to work, great, but what else are you doing with the time? If you have a 2 hours commute each way, isn’t that your choice? The key point here is how you invest that commuting time. Do you waste it by listening to your favorite music or watching a movie on your handphone? Or do you slip into an educational channel and invest the time in learning knowledge and skills that will raise your earning power? Isn’t the example just a series of discretionary things that you choose to do with your time? But this isn’t about time management, this is about developing a mindset that will encourage you to manage your time, your money, and your life.

The good thing about the above example is that it won’t make you feel like you have to devote all your spare time to building wealth while sacrificing the fun time in life that everyone needs. Time is the same for everyone. What you do with it determines the kind of future you will have. Investing part of your spare time in education is the best way to increase the earning power of your work time. Similarly, investing part of your spare time in creating an ongoing income stream to maintain your lifestyle without having to work is building your journey toward financial independence.

That’s all for now, my friends. See you all in my next articles.

Spend your time wisely. 

Use it to increase your earning power here