Time: Your Most Valuable Asset

Most people believe that money is the most valuable asset to a company but I believe time is. Your time, your coworkers’ time. Eventually you make & spend money to accumulate more time (hiring an employee is buying 40 hours per week of her time indefinitely). Adding more and more people increases the value of time as well as the thinking of time as a valuable asset in the same way we think about money is an interesting exercise.

First, it is a great equalizer. Everyone has the same amount. You have the same amount of hours in a day that Einstein or Steve Jobs had. Second, if the right people come together and collaborate, the value increases exponentially. If two people invest $1,000 into a new venture, the result is $2,000. If two people invest a week of their time and collaborate on a project, the resulting value is something more valuable than what each of them could individually contribute (remember, two people giving $1,000 is still $2,000).

1 + 1 = 3, or more.

It seems obvious to most people that our time is valuable but it is much harder to treat it with the same discipline that we give to our money. If a friend asks you for $500, you will most certainly be extremely reluctant to give away your hard-earned money. But if a coworker asks you to work on a project over the weekend, we somehow feel obligated to do it. People who are stingy with their money are considered earnest while those who are stingy with their time are considered selfish.