Your Time is Your Most Valuable Currency; Spend it Wisely

Principles

• Like a shrewd businessman weighs each investment opportunity carefully, a suave man doesn’t invest emotionally in women who haven’t first earned it. This is especially true for women you’ve just met - if they reject you, you shouldn’t place enough emotional investment in her reaction to care.

• Until you get married, there are no obligations associated with relationships. Nothing is owed. If you want to be like Jerry Seinfeld and dump her because she has man-hands, that’s your right; just as it’s her right to dump you if she doesn’t like your eyebrows. Treat life accordingly and don’t settle for anything less than best. It’s self-disrespectful if you do.

• A man should be preoccupied enough with his central missions in life that this all happens naturally.

Introduction

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.

Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way…

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older,

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

-Pink Floyd, “Time”

This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.

-Fight Club

There’s an old saying that “time is money.” That’s ridiculous, of course.

Time is infinitely more valuable than money.

If you had ten lifetimes, you could easily put aside a little bit of money and retire at age 650 to your giant mansion, your pool, and your sports cars.

The money isn’t the problem. Time is, because while you can always get more money, you are never getting your time back.

So many people worry about how they spend their money, to the point where Extreme Couponers become a thing. Those people are ridiculous, though, because they don’t realize that the time they’re spending is more valuable than the money they’re saving.

They could be spending their time more wisely. Learning how to invest. Learning how to earn more money. Learning how to be a better person.

Instead, they trade 15 minutes of potential skill-building, ever-melting time because they want to save a quarter on the Spaghetti-O’s they wouldn’t have bought anyway.

I’m all for being frugal with your money. But you should be even more frugal with your time.

A truly suave, renaissance person sees time a little differently. Time is not only your most powerful currency, it’s the only one that is certainly finite. That makes it more precious than dollars, gold, dates, friends, everything.

Let’s use our time wisely.

Time in its Social Context

If you truly start to value your time, then your social life is about to change.

• Ending conversations first. When you approach a woman or are approached by one, I recommend ending the conversation first. A lot of so-called PUA’s will gasp at this. “What?! But you didn’t even have sex with her yet! You have to push, push, push until you have sex with every single human on earth! Argh!” Nonsense. You should have the attitude of “presenting opportunities,” at least if you hope to maintain any shred of abundance mentality. I knew a guy in college who wouldn’t even ask women out, he would just mention somewhere he’s going and see if they invited themselves along. If they didn’t, he’d move on. If he can do that, you can do something as simple as end the first conversation. “I have to get going…” should become habit.
• Keep texting to a minimum. Texting is a “modern convenience” in some ways, but it’s actually far less efficient than an actual conversation. You talk faster than you type. People can hear your intonations on the phone. Texting distracts you from driving, which is why you should never text and drive. What’s more, responding to a text right away suggests that you are willing to drop whatever you’re doing: it says your time isn’t valuable at the moment. Yikes. I tend to say “texting is for logistics only.” Don’t make it your primary method of talking to people, because it’s just too damn useless to serve you in that way.
• End phone conversations first. If you call, if you get called, whatever. Value in-person interactions more, because they’re becoming rarer these days.
• End the kiss first. Granted, a make-out session is hardly what I’d call a waste of time…so bear with me on this one. This one isn’t always the most important, but it’s a great way to build some tension and show that you aren’t automatically seduced simply because someone showed sexual interest.

Respect Your Own Time First

All of the tips above (save for the kissing stuff) relate to something very important: you should respect your own time first. Respecting your own time is a sign of “self-respect with perspective.” You know that time is your most valuable currency, and you’re relentless in protecting it. It’s a sign of respecting your individuality and life at the deepest level.

This means not wasting your time, whether that’s wasting your time on your own or with others.

One key way in which this respect manifests itself? Don’t accept every offer thrown your way.

Remember the episode of Seinfeld, “The Opposite”? George decides that all of his decisions in life have been wrong…so he starts doing the opposite, using the logic that if the old decisions were wrong…the new ones would have to be right. If not, here’s a refresher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUvKE3bQlY

George meets a beautiful woman and hits it off with her. They’re sitting in his car outside her place, leading to this exchange:

Victoria: Are you sure you don’t wanna come up? I mean, it’s only nine thirty.

George: I don’t think we should. We really don’t know each other very well.

Victoria: Who are you, George Costanza?

George: I’m the opposite of every guy you’ve ever met.

George is (inadvertently) doing the right thing here. Usually, he would be so deep in scarcity mentality that he would jump at the chance to go up to a beautiful woman’s apartment. Now he’s doing the opposite: abundance. He doesn’t have to take every opportunity thrown his way.

This inherent social proof suggests to the woman that this is not the first such oppportunity you’ve ever had…and as a consequence, you become more attractive, not less attractive.

That isn’t to say that you should always reject people using this logic. It’s to say that you should value your time and emotional investment enough that you shouldn’t give it out to every single opportunity that comes your way.

Don’t be afraid to be discerning. Don’t be afraid to say, “let’s wait.”

Being pushy and horny is not suave. It says all of the wrong things about you. Instead, fix the central issues about respecting your own time and energy and the naturally suave behaviors will start to manifest themselves.

Abandon (Relation)Ship

Respect other peoples’ time as well. If you’re not enjoying a relationship, break up. You’re only wasting both of your time.

Does this mean you should abandon ship every time your girlfriend isn’t doing something you like? She ate all of your pretzels, dump her?

Well, no. But…kind of.

Ideally, you shouldn’t even start a relationship until you’ve learned how to respect your own time, and learned that people should have to earn a reason for your investment - emotional and time - before even starting. Again, you don’t want to take every opportunity that comes your way unless the opportunity is right.

But if you find yourself in a relationship that feels “wrong” because your time isn’t respected, you aren’t respected…abandon ship. Unless you’ve made a legal decision to unify with your spouse, you don’t owe anyone a relationship.

Spending Your Time Wisely

Ending your conversations first and avoiding too much texting might seem like advice aimed at making you impossible to reach. That’s not the goal here. The goal is to value your time, which means investing more of your time in people who provide a lot of value and gratification to your lives, and investing more in those relationships.

The goal, after all, is not to use none of your time. It’s to free up the time you do have so that you use it finding what truly rewards and fulfills you.

How to Build this Kind of Aura Naturally

As you value your time more and more, you’ll start to build an aura of a man with “connections,” with “things to do,” who’s “going places.” People will automatically and unconsciously make these assumptions about you simply by how you have a focus on getting things done and not wasting your time.

That’s not what you’re doing it for, of course. You’re taking control of your time and your life so that you can get better results from the investments you make with this valuable currency. Here’s how to naturally use your time better while creating an aura that your time is valuable.

• Put aside a lot of time for your main purpose in life. Your career, your dreams, your ambitions. David Deida in his book “The Way of the Superior Man” reminds us that no one is going to give them to you, and no one is going to magically grant what you want to you - you have to make it happen. He recommends putting aside an hour every day, starting TODAY, working on your ultimate passion. Because tomorrow is not going to be better than today. You are either growing or dying when it comes to the world of time, so grow, now.
• Work in big batches. Avoid half-working. When you’re at work, concentrate on working. When you’re on a break, really take a break. When you’re working out, work out hard - break a real sweat. When you’re resting at night, really rest and leave tomorrow’s troubles to tomorrow. Not only is this more efficient, but it will feel more healthy. This is especially true for e-mail and other over-done activities. Read Tim Ferriss’ productivity manual “The Four-Hour Workweek” if you want more advice on working in batches and minimizing time wasting.
• If you have too much free time, find wise ways of spending it. Don’t leave all of your time in the bank, unspent. Time well-spent is the aim here. Fill your unspent free time with challenging hobbies, learning new things, or investing in your social life with social hobbies. If you’re not already working out, for example, then you’re not spending all of your free time wisely.
• Limit and eliminate interruptions. If you get interrupted while sleeping, consider how badly that night tends to go rather than a night full of seamless, restful rejuvination. That’s not only true for sleep. Interruptions throw you off your game, so don’t tolerate them at work or any time when you have to concentrate.

The ancient Romans used to assign someone to reminding victorious generals “Remember you are mortal, remember you are mortal.” The message? Time is limited for us all. It should make us humble. It should give us perspective.

Respect your time. Use it to build yourself up, not to “fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way.” And don’t let anyone disrespect your time, either. You’ll be happier, more productive, and ultimately, better off.