Measuring time: we have been so wrong.
Yes it is quite true.
I am not talking about relativity but how we measure time in our daily lives.
There are one’s amongst us who always seem to be in a rush and others who seem to be always on holiday time. Some that are punctual to the minute and others who are habitually late.
Yes I am now segmenting the market, we all value the same time- differently. Obviously!
I am sure you know of someone who can watch an entire TV series during holidays ( or even during exams) and others who will be busy doing the work. While the candidates are somewhat between the working hard and hardly working types, the question to be asked is do we all value time in units which are linear and are same?
The truth is that these units are cumulative, just like compound interest at bank, they accumulate exponentially.
I am going to take you through a few scenario’s ( just a few) which, I hope will bring out the conundrum ( unless I manage to confuse you earlier )
Billable Hourly rate Paradigm
This is where the value is flattened at a pace faster than a penny on the rails of a moving train. Most consulting organisations use this paradigm. Organisations are accustomed to asking for a quote based on per hour/per day or per year costs so that they can compare the value added by two distinct experts with the outcome they can produce. The world has moved from mechanical work where efficiency was measured in terms of volume of work done to intellectual where outcome is defined by person’s intellect, expertise, which has cumulated over years and how deftly one has honed skills. I was in discussion with a senior government executive when he suggested that a few litres of water in a tankful of milk will not have a negative impact on taste. In simple terms if the price is fixed you can dabble with efficiency. Some consulting organisations have learnt to negotiate better while others and often the better one continually price themselves out of the market. Time is time and money is money don’t mix the two.
Net Utilisable time Paradigm
If you are a pizza vendor, you get your ingredients ready each in its own container and when a customer asks for a certain type of pizza you bring those ingredients up and make one up quickly.
If you are a Human Resources provider or consumer you calculate it on the basis of a person available on a full time equivalent basis and the time you have put the resource for use for productive activities. Nothing wrong with this, however there are two contrarian ends of this spectrum first the resource can be thinking about solving a problem and may have a micro-Eureka moment even when not deployed or the many micro-Eureka moments of the resource can be combined together to create a new solution or a product just like pizza ( lets call it azzip) . The world is moving rapidly into knowledge driven economy and measuring time purely on the basis of bums on seats leads to false economy. This is fuelled by all the others who don’t know any other better way. Buyers, if they don’t know any better should be made aware or warned to beware.
Busy Paradigm
This is observed in large corporates, sometimes in the absence of any information about a person we value them based on their current commitments. A measure about how busy one is. I have commonly heard about the phrase “back to back meetings”. Unless you are armed with a battalion that is ready to execute on your command it has created an army of meeting chasers who love to fill up their time sheets and appear to be busy without adding to corporate bottom line. They cause significant collateral damage as when it comes to redundancies and efficiency improvements by organisations they sometimes take others with them on the way out. The other challenge they have is that being busy prevents them being up-skilled at the pace in which the market is changing to the point where they have made themselves and everyone they influence, truly redundant.
Expert — Generalist Paradigm
These are the highly qualified experts in a narrow domain. The allure of people in this field is that they heavily have invested in knowledge acquisition and they continue to do so. Their knowledge and skill grows exponentially in a narrow paradigm sometimes to the point when the market shifts and they are compelled to chasing the next wave. Law of lemons do apply to some people in this group as they call themselves “whatever is in demand” from ecommerce to data guru’s to AI, robotics and nano technology.
In the market, experts need generalists and generalists need experts. Bungee jumping between the two, due to market shifts, certainly creates market full of quacks who are ready to fleece the unsuspecting. Though there may be only a handful of such elements in the market, they destroy perceived value.
When their skill do not multiply over time and when the market shifts though these self styled gurus have re-skilled themselves on to something useful but it is completely disconnected and shallow. They become good at selling and not good at solving problems.
It is easier for an Alto Saxophone player to play tenor but expecting the same person to exercise the vocal cords is a stretch. Hence in the modern age teaming up is the best way you can leverage your skills in fact communicating and connecting with others… as the wise will tell you is equally important as your expertise. As Warren Buffet says “winking at a girl in the dark — no one notices”. You will need to form a connection with relevance and those who need the skill.
Boredom Paradigm
We often feel bored. It is usually caused because we are in the rut of sameness. We need a novelty, something new, a new challenge,
If you find yourself spending time on channels more than spending the time on watching programs on TV, a good reason is you are bored. The instant availability of entertainment and amusement has also crippled our sense of awareness and we tend to get bored in an instant. If you have nothing to do for 37 second perhaps you would jump to your phone rather than enjoying the scene outside the moving train or car.
You may have a nagging person who commands your life and a small amplitude of deviation from the norm makes you bored and wanting to run away. You continue living a mundane life that bores you to the socks.
Perhaps you fail to recognise that every minute you spend in this paradigm you are eating your life away bit by bit. If you don’t like watching movies or reading fiction you perhaps are missing out on stimulating the part of brain which helps your imagination and creativity. Too much of goal directed effort may also turn you into a boring person ( unless that is exactly what you want). When achieving goals become the purpose of your life everything else looks secondary. Enjoying the journey is a part of enjoying the destination because you will end up spending more time in journey. Prioritise on how you spend your time when in your journey, else you will end up being bored and wasting a good chunk of your life while staying bored.
Asking and telling to sell
I get 17 marketing emails exactly at same time each day — perhaps they are all using the same software that predicts that I have time at that time to read emails because may be I did two years ago…. Needless to say I flagged them all to read later and chances are that I may not be able to go through them by the end of the day today and tomorrow I will perhaps get another 17 emails in my account. When everyone has same information about my availability at a certain time and they trigger the action my time reduces, no matter what you do with that algorithm it will keep changing and you will keep buying more tools. Stop and rethink before you take action before you try to save time by automation.
Time to build expertise
Some experts have suggested 10,000 hours to build mastery. The world seems to have taken that for granted. I tend to believe that it is a massive grey zone.
There are infinite nuances to building expertise so in the absence of any parameters substantial this may have homed into peoples minds, that said zeal, enthusiasm, spirit, purpose and intent play a significant role.
Investing 10,000 hours may not make a Wimbledon champion or a Spielberg it may not even make a good cardiac surgeon. In simple words deliberate practice of a bad tune will surely make you an expert in it but is it worth it? That said once we have managed to convince ourselves that we can build expertise faster, or photographic memory is a real thing, or scientifically proven fact that kids can learn in their mothers womb, people can learn in dream. It may mean a different mastery period for different people.
This yardstick of measurement reminds me of an old story when a king perturbed by the crows in the kingdom asks his minister to give him the count of crows in the Kingdom and be prepared to be beheaded if the number suggested by minister is wrong.
The minister gives an arbitrary number.
“How can you be so sure?
what if there are more?” The king asks.
There might be visitors or the new babies born because your count may take some time. The minister replies
“What if there are less?” The king asks again.
“Then they must be visiting their friends outside your kingdom and some may have died by the time you finish the count” replies the minister.
I am sure you get the picture behind pulling out arbitrary numbers, we can prove them. We can prove the point but are they useful?
It takes an average of 12 years for an average student to go through structured education from grade 1 to grade 12. You take the structure out and create a new structure around each student, you are bound to get a different outcome. That means you need a full school revolving around an individual student, yes would be my answer. Society and humanity has not evolved to the extent of mass customisation where we impart learning, knowledge and skill tailored to each individual ( and they full future potential). Once day when the mass customisation of learning becomes feasible due to the advent of technology and social acceptance, the numbers may not need by arbitrary but individually tailored one.
Till that happens a significant human potential on the planet, under-utilised will go to waste endemically in the developed and developing economies.
Economic Growth
Most of the spending in todays world is on products and services that did not exist 200 years ago. Considering we have existed on the planet for over 100,000 years. This is a remarkable feat. What is equally remarkable is that should the trend continue, we are bound to see a seismic shift in the next couple of decades on the planet. The trend is going to be exponential.
Irrespective of what you are investing on you should aim for exponential returns. Think of things that can change the world or have an impact on human life. Most of them don’t exist now, it is a greenfield opportunity.
Keep attending free giving free offers or pro-bono work.
Since Chris Andersen wrote Free people have attempted to stretch the meaning of free a bit too far. The purpose of free is to eventually create value or create value by leveraging free in some form.
This free has taken the form of perpetual personal brand positioning for individuals that never creates value for them.
I have seen people giving free seminars and people attending for free. I confess, I have given and attended them both. In some cases it feels like a network of seekers meeting other seekers with the hope to achieve a business outcome; but a match of seeker and provider never occurs, the deal is not made, or the dotted line never signed. Perhaps because both are on the same side of table trying to complete a transaction.
On the flip side, the providers of such event, lack accountability and the seekers of such free service may lack accountability. As a result some of these seekers never put these ideas into action.
Remember if you are open to attending a free seminar but are unwilling to pay $50 for the same seminar you are also putting ta very low value to your time.
I know showcasing the value you offer is important. But you have to put value to your time before others do. This was a hard lesson for me to learn and an expensive one. I had to tell a prospect who wanted more pro-bono hours from me to validate my skills (read free work) . My response was what was demonstrated should be sufficient to make an informed decision. If it does not, it never will. But there is a large convoluted economy of free that never bears fruit. When in doubt tell yourself, you are worth it.
Many may spend hours looking for a free substitute for a $20 software, for some it gives an ultimate joy of going though the motion. But next time do ponder it is not the software but your utilisation of time that is going to waste which can be used to up-skill yourself or speak to a friend you have not spoken to for ages.
The claim that software hunters may suggest is that they were not doing anything productive. Perhaps that is the reason they are not able to do productive activities as they have put such a low value in their time.
Free, should be your choice, your proof, your creative pursuit, no one should be able to demand it from you.
It is like stealing a part of your life from you.
Building intellectual reflex Action
James Clear’s Atomic habits is a beautiful read on habits. Some actions are performed without thinking and perhaps we need to build our intellectual muscles for it. Somewhere between habits and common sense information gets deeply etched in. It does requires deliberate practice. If you can’t make small mundane decisions then it will be difficult for you to make complex ones. The quality of life you will live will be dictated by decisions you make. The value of your life will be a cumulation of the number of and quality of decisions you will make. Hence you need to automate some decisions and the process till they form part of who you are. It will help you on who you will become.
We need to constantly think if we are investing enough for those repetitive tasks that will help us now or later in life. We don’t know how long we will live but irrespective, the value of investing earlier in life will outweigh procrastinating. As it is said the best time to plant a tree was 20 year ago or it is now.
Just on the same topic when my friend was learning driving the instructor asked — If your mother in law is on one side and your husband is on another what will you hit. Mother in law, she promptly answered. Frustrated the instructor said, once again I tell you that you will hit brakes. Some decisions should be automatic.
Opportunity cost of time
It is the other things you can do with time that can be of value, financial gain or benefit. It drills down to making money and not memories. We value the memories we create not the money we make. That said money helps us buy things that will help us create memories and create comfort. Besides making money you can , fly a kite, play music, watch TV meditate, go for a jog. You can do millions of things.
I am surprised how some call watching TV and do so many other things with your time as a waste while many have made it a way of life and make good money and lifestyle from watching and making others watch them. Surprisingly if you dig any billionaire, they never set out to make money. Pick any billionaire, you will find that their focus always have been on a problem they solve, a thing they like to do, or change the world, create an impact. They always do something that makes money but they equally do other things in life that does not make money . Perhaps you need to treat the aspects differently — who you are and what you stand for. Money is an aspect of life. Yes if you don’t have it, it seems everything and you try to spin the wheels faster adding to frustration at a faster pace. You need to look up Ikigai, a path to living a fulfilling life. Money is absolutely vital, but measure what matters while you strive for it. Don’t forget to create memories. Good ones.
Winging and worrying at large.
Sharing negative emotions to a certain degree may help you seek empathy guidance and purpose. Worrying does help you evaluate the worst case scenario. Bad things happen however wasting time in getting into negative thinking is akin to worrying about a car on the opposite side of the road coming and hitting you. What are the odds? Think of having a cough when everyone around you thinks you may have COVID to the world ending. How bad it is and how bad it is like to be. Some of us make winging and complaining in a perfect art form and try to fill all the available time with that. Remember you are also creating negative vibes and you will only attract what you give out. Sometimes you cannot avoid negative situations but you can certainly avoid what you tell yourself about it. Man’s Search for meaning by Victor Frankl talks about identifying a purpose in life to feel positive as a prisoner in nazi concentration camp, whist Jesse Livermore, one of the most successful stock trader committed suicide and in a note to his wife Nina said I am tired of fighting. Can’t carry on any longer.
Bad times or moments feel like eternity and good times fly very rapidly. Those fleeting moments cannot be changed but you can change what stories you tell yourself about it. Worrying does take life.
Right timing, hard work and Luck
There is a lot written on this topic I will not get into details but think that you are born on this planet to a family, in a country, to a religion what is that based on?
We tend to overestimate the things we can control and underestimate the things we can’t control.
The quality of our human body ( likely longevity) quality of organs and genetic predisposition is something we inherit.
Yes you can get lucky by investing time and doing the hard work and lot of people will tell you that you can be anything. Instead of investing time and energy being someone else or like someone else, we should aim to be the best version of ourselves.
I wonder ( and worry) when sometimes people teach you to invest time in doing something, perhaps they have had success more than once in doing it . Imbibing the same process for you can be exhausting and expensive, it worked for them but not sure will work for you even after you spend a tidy sum learning a new “thing” . Tread with caution as what made them successful may not be the right thing for you. Right time, hard work, and luck are only relevant once you start recognising who you are. ( I would suggest you read an interesting article by Warren E. Buffet — The super investors of Graham and Doddsville found here http://www.tilsonfunds.com/superinvestors.pdf)
Hard works improves the probability of success when odds are in favour or the probability of success but that is only part of the equation not the full equation.
Urgency Paradigm
World loves instant gratification. You post a picture you see it instantly on social media. You send an email at the midnight and you expect to see a response first thing next day if not at the same time. Bamboo takes 7 years to sprout. But when it does it grows rapidly. We forget that overnight success may take years and some times generations in the making. We forget that self made success has been possible because of the efforts of so many around the person. Outcomes are cumulative. Sense of direction is vital. We only control what we can do and what we can influence.
Two ways of managing time
As a parting thought I am sharing two techniques that have worked for me.
Pomodoro Technique
In the world full of wonderful opportunities to perfectly distract and detract you from your focus at any given point in time, I have noted the Pomodoro technique works. If you have more work means more Pomodoro’s ( you can read more about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique )
Meditation
If you are running around crazy and busy, spending time on meditation will help. Every minute you spend on meditation you will recover significantly more in other aspects of your life owing to the focus you may get.
Meditate — you detach from reality whilst being a part of it. You observe the ever changing reality around you as an observant bystander, you see the world’s reality disconnected connectedness. ( more on this topic here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation)
Time is cumulative not linear, it is a good idea to start investing whatever your purpose may be,
sooner you find your purpose the more you can invest in order to achieve it.
For there is a limit beyond which you will have to be aware of quantified time you have on the planet so pass what you know to the next generation for they will know much more than you will every know.
Sameer Babbar
