I often wonder at what point our society lost its value of time. It seems that we have found a way to place a value on every material possession, on people and even on our pets, yet we don’t seem to understand the value of time. Many business classes teach about the time value of money, how to value the costs of business opportunities yet these theories are not often applied to our everyday lives.

I love to tell this story because it signifies an epiphany in my life. A friend once asked me to do something and I simply responded, “I don’t have time.” He quickly corrected me and said, “It’s not that you don’t have time, it’s just not that important to you.” This statement stopped me dead in my tracks because I realized that he was right. I had become so comfortable saying that I didn’t have time for certain things because it was easier than saying that it wasn’t important to me.

I spent some time reflecting on this realization and how I spent my time. I began to understand that time is a more valuable commodity than money and especially more than material possessions. It seems that somewhere in our society we lost the ability to value our time and began to spend it frivolously. We waste it like leftovers in a refrigerator pushed to the back for weeks. We constantly put off for tomorrow what can be done today which leads to regret. We have friends that we promise to call when we get a chance or family members that we should visit but think they can wait until the next holiday. We see our children growing before our eyes but think there will be plenty of time to recapture moments lost.

The value of our time, unlike most things in our life, is invaluable. Although we allow employers and contractors to place value on hours in our day, there is much more time that has no value. I work with many of clients on creating and having successful businesses. What I often find is that their discontentment is not rooted in their ability to achieve professional success but their misalignment of their personal lives. So many of us spend our hours trying to fulfill the dreams and passions that are grounded in the expectation that others have for our lives rather than gaining a true understanding of how we should live to achieve personal satisfaction.

How do you reach this satisfaction? I have a simple three-step process:

Make a list of your priorities. Think for a moment, if you could focus all of your time doing one thing, what would it be? If you could add one more thing…then add one more thing…and continue until you have about five items on your list.

Schedule your time. Looking at your priorities begin to reevaluate your daily and weekly schedule to see if you are spending your time according to your priorities. Do you say God is your number priority but you don’t make time for church or bible study? Do you value time with your family but can’t find time to sit down for dinner each night?

Live your priorities. Time, unlike money and material possessions, cannot be replaced. Most of us will be able to make more money, we will be able to buy new stuff but we once a loved one has passed away; we won’t be able to say I love you to their smiling face. Once they are gone; we won’t smell grandma’s sweet potato pie and we won’t have martinis with our best girlfriend.

By understanding and living your priorities, you may sacrifice some of the money or the material possessions but your biggest sacrifice will be a life filled with regret.

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