Time

I’ve been thinking about time a lot recently. I mean ultimately wasting time whilst I’m thinking about what I’m going to do with my time. I could keep going but it would get messy and this isn’t some time-travelling post. There have been periods over the last few weeks where I’ve felt every second. I can physically feel the second hand ticking around my body clock, giving me a little nudge every time, gently whispering… ‘don’t waste me.’ And there have been periods where time is a distant concern as I race through my day. And still I get a little nagging in the back of my head… ‘have you wasted me?’

A great friend once gave me some really good advice. Well I thought it was good advice. They said, ‘when you can, buy time.’ They had received a promotion at work and with this change in their work life, it meant that instead of taking more money, they were able to drop down to working four days a week instead of five. They bought time. The reduced wage on four days a week was the same as their old wage on five days a week. This meant they were more able to pursue the things they wanted to do, rather than spend five days a week working and then being too tired the rest of the time to do anything else.

This very simple calculation confounded and amazed me. For a while, I couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t keep working full time and rake in more money. Money to spend on sweeties and sand shoes. I was a little younger than I am now and I suppose my view on my ‘career’ was one of work as much as possible, do the best job you can and get ahead. Keep striving for more. I didn’t understand, but I trusted my friend and so this little nugget of an idea has stayed with me and chipped away at the back of my brain for quite a while.

So much so that someone asked me recently what my future at work looked like and after a short musing I surprisingly said, ‘the next milestone is to reduce my working week to four days.’ I don’t know what the milestone will be after that, but I can figure that out with my extra day off a week! I want to buy time. I think I’m finally at a position where that advice has sunk in and made sense. Only took ten years or so. Time to do nothing or do those things that I always wanted to get to one day, but never seem to have the time. I could get so much ‘nothing’ done! It’s possible that I’ve matured or maybe I’m more tired nowadays and that’s changed my outlook.