Most productivity strategies focus on short-term efficiency, like how to get more done each morning or workday.
But certain strategic choices impact our time on a larger scale, like investments and debts.
Here’s how to think in terms of time assets and time debts.
This post originally appeared onJames Clear’s blog.
One notorious anecdote that can illustrate the idea of time assets involves Steve Jobs.
Late in his career, Steve Jobs famously drove his car without a license plate.
There were all sorts of theories about why Jobs decided to drive without tags.
Some people said he didn’t want to be tracked.
Others believed he was trying to make a game of avoiding parking tickets.
Jon Callas, a former computer security expert who worked for Apple, revealed a different reason.
According to Callas, Steve Jobs discovered a loophole in the California vehicle registration laws.
During the first six months, however, you could simply drive the vehicle without a license plate.
These are all reasonable ideas.
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Time assetsare actions or choices you make today that will save you time in the future.
Software is a classic example of a time asset.
You pay an upfront investment of time and get a payoff each day afterward.
The car leasing system that Steve Jobs developed is another example of a time asset.
Of course, that’s a rather elaborate way to avoid standing in line at the DMV.
Time debtsare actions or choices you make today that will cost you additional time in the future.
Email is a time debt that most people participate in each day.
Every email you send creates a small debt that you have to pay back at a later time.
This is not to say that all time debts are bad.
Perhaps you enjoy serving on your school committee or volunteering with a local organization.
Sometimes the debts we commit to are worth sacrificing for, many times they are not.
Here are a few I came up with.
Assets
Speaking.
This could include a descriptive Frequently Asked Questions section or a better sign up form.
Booking calendar appointments, calls, and interviews requires a lot of email.
Using software likeScheduleOnceeliminates this problem and lets people choose from a pre-selected list of available times.
Debts
Email.
As a public speaker and writer, I often get asked to do interviews.
At first, I said yes to every interview that came my way.
Today, I typically do three to five every week.
Saying yes to every interview has become a time debt.
If you don’t edit your article now, you’ll have to fix the grammar later.
If you write sloppy code now, you’ll have to debug it later.
Every low quality piece of work is a time debt that you have to pay back.
If your schedule is filled with Time Debts, then it doesn’t matter how hard you work.
Your choices will constantly put you in a productivity hole.
However, if you strategically build Time Assets day after day, then you multiply your time exponentially.
This isn’t an approach that only works for Steve Jobs.
It works for all of us.
Time Debts need to be paid.
Be careful how you choose them.
Time Assets pay you over and over again.
Spend more time creating them.
October 27, 2011. you’re able to read his great productivity post on the concepthere.
Image byViktoria Kazakova(Shutterstock).
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