We’ve all got the same amount time: 24 hrs, 1400 minutes and 86,400 seconds in a day. How you spend your time determines the course and direction of your life. Learning to protect your time from time waters and time wasting activivites is one of the hallmarks of highly successful people.
The chairman and CEO of American multinational conglomerate holding company Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffet repeatedly says no to almost any interview request by Journalists. His usual response is that he has said virtually anything he needs to communicate through previous interviews, books, documentaries and media appearances. Buffet reckons that he has calculated the number of days he still has to be alive, and because of that, he is very deliberate about how he spends his limited amount of time left. The 93-year-old Buffett is considered the most consistent value investor in the world, and according to Forbes, he is the fifth richest person in the world with a net worth of $117 Billion as of October 2023. 1
Warren Buffet is a rare breed of humans living up to their tenth century in life. When you get to that age, you usually do not have time for time-wasting, time wasters and drainers as you know that the number of days you still have to live is less than the number of days you have lived. At that age, you begin to reflect on your life, your legacy and the impact you have made in life. Most of us don’t start living our lives until it is kind of too late. Most of us live in someday isle, we delay living our lives and we say someday I’ll do almost everything. Someday I’ll start that business, go back to school, when the kids leave home, etc. As Warren Buffet once quipped, “Delaying living is like delaying sex for old age; it does not make sense.”
In a 2001 lecture + Q&A at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia, Warren Buffet elaborates on the importance of living life to the fullest and having fun. He starts the lecture with a great story about the value of living in the moment. He said:
I really want to talk about what’s on your mind, so we’re going to do a Q and A in a minute. There are a couple questions I always get asked. You know, people always say, “Well who should I go to work for when I get out then?” I’ve got a very simple answer, we may elaborate more on this as we go along, but, you know the real thing to do is to get going for some institution or individual that you admire. I mean it’s crazy to take in-between jobs just because they look good on your resume, or because you get a little higher starting pay.
I mean it’s crazy to take in-between jobs just because they look good on your resume, or because you get a little higher starting pay.
I was up at Harvard a while back, and a very nice young guy, he picked me up at the airport, a Harvard Business School attendee. And he said, “Look. I went to undergrad here, and then I worked for X and Y and Z, and now I’ve come here.” And he said, “I thought it would really round out my resume perfectly if I went to work now for a big management consulting firm.” And I said, “Well, is that what you want to do?” And he said, “No,” but he said, “That’s the perfect resume.” And I said, “Well when are you going to start doing what you like?” And he said, “Well I’ll get to that someday.” And I said, “Well you know, your plan sounds to me a lot like saving up sex for your old age. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Well I’ll get to that someday.” And I said, “Well you know, your plan sounds to me a lot like saving up sex for your old age. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
I told that same group, I said, “Go to work for whomever you admire the most.” I said, “You can’t get a bad result. You’ll jump out of bed in the morning and you’ll be having fun.” The Dean called me up a couple weeks later. He said, “What did you tell those kids? They’re all becoming self-employed.”
“Go to work for whomever you admire the most.”
The more you try to manage your time 3 with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, and freedom from the inevitable constraints of being human, the more stressful, empty, and frustrating life gets. But the more you confront the facts of finitude instead—and work with them, rather than against them—the more productive, meaningful, and joyful life becomes.
The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short. But that isn’t a reason for unremitting despair, or for living in an anxiety-fueled panic about making the most of your limited time. It’s a cause for relief. You get to give up on something that was always impossible—the quest to become the optimized, infinitely capable, emotionally invincible, fully independent person you’re officially supposed to be. Then you get to roll up your sleeves and start work on what’s gloriously possible instead.
Meditation
- Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Little Things
- Caught up with our day-to-dayness, it is easy to lose touch with gratitude.
Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things. – Bruce Barton
- Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Teleoanticipation
- Teleoanticipation is not only about timing; it is about accessing the task ahead.
- It is impossible to be intentional about the future if you are not in touch with all the levels of how you feel. If you don’t see yourself with clarity.
Podcast
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