Spend time (Stupid side project #2)
Written by Darcey Beau
Spend time is an app which converts and deposits a weeks worth of time into a virtual account.
This blog is a written explanation of the concept. If you just want to view the end concept and not ‘waste your time’ reading this nonsense, click here.
There are officially 180 currencies recognised as legal tender within the United Nations. However, “time” can only ever be perceived as a currency when one identifies what their time is worth.
Tim Ferris, an investor who I particularly admire, expressed his thoughts on the subject of ‘time’ in a recent interview with Real Vision TV…
Although time can technically be spent in exchange for something. For example, the time I’m spending writing this, I would consider it an investment into my writing skills. However, time isn’t tangible and can’t be transferred as a physical currency can, therefore It’s difficult to perceive it as a currency.
My mission with ‘Spend Time’ was intended to help people perceive time as their personal currency, and help you ask the question:
How much is your time worth?
If you could change peoples perception of time, perhaps you could change their behavior towards it, too?
Occasionally I find myself talking with people who spend their Monday to Friday simply hating what they do. If that someone is you, this project might be the inspiration and motivation for change.
I figured, if I saw a weeks worth of time deposited into a virtual account, which had to be spent before the end of the week; perhaps it would challenge me to spend it uniquely?
It’s almost as if people feel like they have to spend their time doing the things they simply don’t want to do — that seems sad!
Maybe it’s a crazy idea, however, like my mate Suli, said…
“Crazy people will one day rule the world…”
The best bit about looking at time as a currency is everyone has time to spend. In fact, you have precisely 10,080 minutes of it to spend every single week. When you look at it like that, and give each minute of your life a value to £1 - You’re time rich!
For the past 3 to 4 years I’ve started to use this technique of evaluating my time expenditure and managing my risk as if my time was my personal currency. I’ve realised the best thing about teaching myself this skill so early in my life is I’ve recognised I can afford to take loads of calculated risks, and still have plenty of time to recover if it all goes tits up.
I’ve tried to craft this outlook on time, and execute it as an app, you can see the finished product, here.
