# How important is time to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 18, 2015, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172 "2015-08-18T13:57:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/21 "2015-08-19T02:13:31Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Time flies like an arrow. > > If you can avoid having any arrows in your home (or keep them in the freezer), you can avoid an infestation of time flies. OK, I really like this. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/22 "2015-08-19T03:27:46Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Time flies like an arrow. > > If you can avoid having any arrows in your home (or keep them in the freezer), you can avoid an infestation of time flies. Is that a feng shui remedy? šŸ˜• problem: Time keeps on slippingā€¦ into the future. feng shui remedy: Keep all banana peels securely away. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/23 "2015-08-19T03:41:28Z")
I over value time. I have suffered from chronic insomnia most of my life because I donā€™t want to sleep, I feel like I am loosing time. In reality I do nothing important with my time, I am retired and I basically just play. I stay very busy but just at play anymore. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/24 "2015-08-19T16:03:57Z")
[xkcd:](http://www.xkcd.com/1524/) ā€œOf the four dimensions I could have spent my life being pushed inexorably forward through, I guess ā€˜timeā€™ isnā€™t the worst.ā€ In answer to the OPā€™s question, itā€™s been awhile since my wife and I realized we had more than enough money, but not nearly as much time as weā€™d like. So we trade money for time in a number of ways. For instance, paying a cleaning lady once every two weeks beats having to make the beds, vacuum the house, clean the counters, sinks, and toilets, and all that. I donā€™t mind doing chores like that, but I did mind the chunk of my ā€˜freeā€™ time that they used to eat up. ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/25 "2015-08-19T16:08:29Z")
Thanks for the responses. As mentioned, to me, my time is more valuable than any physical object one that one can create or sell. ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/26 "2015-08-19T16:15:06Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > [xkcd:](http://www.xkcd.com/1524/) ā€œOf the four dimensions I could have spent my life being pushed inexorably forward through, I guess ā€˜timeā€™ isnā€™t the worst.ā€ > > In answer to the OPā€™s question, itā€™s been awhile since my wife and I realized we had more than enough money, but not nearly as much time as weā€™d like. So we trade money for time in a number of ways. > > For instance, paying a cleaning lady once every two weeks beats having to make the beds, vacuum the house, clean the counters, sinks, and toilets, and all that. I donā€™t mind doing chores like that, but I did mind the chunk of my ā€˜freeā€™ time that they used to eat up. Good point. Obviously, the cleaning lady doesnā€™t mind using her time for that. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/27 "2015-08-19T16:27:59Z")
Time is important enough to me that I pay people to clean my house and cut my grass, I sometimes forfeit extracurricular activities because Iā€™d rather have the free time, plus I wonā€™t ever choose to live _too_ far from my job (for my personal value of ā€œtooā€). Howeverā€¦ > [@ssgenius](#): > > That is something that many people (including myself) seem to waste without realizing just how important it really is. I donā€™t think time is _so_ important that I canā€™t waste it (again, for my personal value of ā€œwasteā€: I think itā€™s nearly impossible to objectively define it in this context). I also chose a career that often requires more than 40 hours a week, so in that regard money and professional fulfillment are more important to me than time. > [@Senegoid](#): > > Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/28 "2015-08-19T16:51:52Z")
> [@ssgenius](#): > > Thanks Voyager. That is exactly what I was getting at. > > Time is something that no one ever gets back. I even realized that even when I was young and right now, you get to the point to where the mind is willing but the body is not. From a Dylan/Band song on both Basement Tapes releases, called Odds and Ends. Odds and ends, Odds and ends, Lost time is not found again Our PDP-11 printer had a header for all jobs: If time flies like an arrow, what do fruit flies like? Clearly a banana, I see. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/29 "2015-08-19T17:36:19Z")
I donā€™t equate time to a monetary value, it creates a false dichotomy. Unless you would literally be making $X instead of picking up that penny, you have lost nothing (and gained $0.01). When I am at work I make $X per hour/day/year, but that doesnā€™t mean all of my time is worth that amount. When I am not at work I am likely not making money at all. I count time as a quality of life issue. I can, in good concscience, spend or waste it as I see fit so long as I keep quality of life in balance (as much as possible). Not sure I articulated that very well, but Iā€™m out of time! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/30 "2015-08-19T17:38:04Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > \Time keeps on slippingā€¦ into the future. That always seemed backwards to me. (Not that I should expect accuracy and precision from pop song lyrics, and doubly so for Steve Miller, but still.) _We_ keep on slipping into the future; _time_ slips into the past. August 18, 2015 is irretrievably out of reach, drifting away behind us. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/31 "2015-08-19T17:41:50Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > I donā€™t think time is _so_ important that I canā€™t waste it (again, for my personal value of ā€œwasteā€ Having enough spare time that I can ā€˜wasteā€™ some of it without its being a big deal is one of the things I want more time _for_. Like **Doctor Jackson** said, itā€™s a quality of life thing. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/32 "2015-08-19T17:52:10Z")
To a certain extent, oneā€™s valuation of time is in relation to how much spare time that you have, and how much money you have. I mean, when I was out of college and single, I had a lot of spare time. I could spend time doing things that were fun, but where the real payoff was way down the line. Stuff like building my own mountain bike from parts was fun, and informative, but ultimately I ended up trading money for time. Same thing before kids- Iā€™d mow the yard myself; I didnā€™t like spending $$$ when in an hourā€™s worth of work and a little sweat, I could get the job done myself. Now that Iā€™m older, have kids, and have more money, the thought of spending hours putting a bike together sounds like a massive waste of time; Iā€™ll just buy one and have it tweaked by a bike shop to have the parts that I want, and spend my limited spare time doing something else. I pay someone to mow for the same reason- the moneyā€™s less valuable to me than the time that I get back from not having to mow. Not incidentally, I think the time crunch that seems to be thrust upon us as we get older and have families is a big component of why people donā€™t exercise so much. I mean, when I was 29 and single, I could get home from work at 6, meet my workout buddy at the gym at 7, and then get home by about 8:15, and still have 2 hours to do whatever I felt like doing, and do the dishes or whatever at 10:15 if necessary. Now that I have kids, itā€™s more like get home at 5, play with the kids until about 5:45. Eat until about 6:30, give the kids baths, read to them, put them to bed. Usually done at about 7:30-7:45. So I could then go to the gym (15 min drive), work out for an hour, and then come home, which puts me at 9:15. Iā€™d have half an hour before I would have to do the dishes/take out the trash (with kids those chores become mandatory daily events), and get ready for bed. So I donā€™t go work out, and Iā€™m generally not willing to give up an hour of sleep in the morning either. The only real place that could cough up an hour is working time, and thatā€™s never going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/33 "2015-08-19T18:16:32Z")
Itā€™s gotten a lot worse. When I first started working, in 1980, before kids, when I got home I had plenty of time. Even when I got a computer I could not log in to read my mail. No one called at home. Work was done. We had a limited number of channels to watch on the TV. No VCR, so no backlog of things to watch. We read. I wrote some. We walked to Princeton to get ice cream. It was very relaxed. Today, post-kids, I look at work email. Iā€™m involved in a lot of activities using my computer. We have DVDs from Netflix backed up, not to mention streaming potential. I hardly have time to read. And I work longer with a longer commute. And plenty of people have it worse. I may be money richer than back then, but Iā€™m a lot time poorer. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/34 "2015-08-19T18:22:50Z")
While time is very important to me, I often take a viewpoint that itā€™s the journey and not the destination and thus I make decisions that many people donā€™t agree with. So Iā€™ll work on home improvement projects and people say ā€œFor $100 you could rent something that would save you a day of work.ā€ Usually Iā€™m fine without that thing. Itā€™s not just the value of money vs the value of time; itā€™s that I am typically happier working with the hand tools. Another example: while I own a leaf blower, many people are surprised to see me out raking in the fall. Nothing ruins a nice afternoon in the yard like the noise of a leaf blower. I wonā€™t hire a landscaper or a maid - I feel like even those kinds of menial tasks are things I need to slow down and enjoy the process of doing. If I canā€™t make myself take some pleasure from those tasks, I feel that the fault is with me and not with the task. Admittedly, as I get older, I find myself getting more tired and more sore from these kinds of things, so I will probably start taking shortcuts for the sake of physical issues. But then part of the problem is that I could really use more exercise, not less, so solving the problem with money just creates a new problem and a new demand on my time. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/35 "2015-08-19T20:56:43Z")
TL;DR ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/36 "2015-08-19T23:28:26Z")
Someone once said, ā€œYou can always make more money, but you canā€™t make more time.ā€ ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172/37 "2015-08-20T19:52:25Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I wonā€™t hire a landscaper or a maid - I feel like even those kinds of menial tasks are things I need to slow down and enjoy the process of doing. If I canā€™t make myself take some pleasure from those tasks, I feel that the fault is with me and not with the task. I draw a distinction between what I think of as ā€œprojectsā€, and stuff thatā€™s ā€œmaintenanceā€ (yes, Iā€™m an IT guy). Project stuff around the house is fine- usually itā€™s somewhat interesting and thereā€™s a opportunities to take pride in an innovative solution or a job well done. I get annoyed at ā€œmaintenanceā€ though; washing the dishes just sucks and is unrewarding. And I have to do it every damn night. So I tend to look at it as time gone down the toilet every night, and a task to be powered through as fast as I can, while still doing a good job. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-time-to-you/728172.md?page=1)