On the first day of summer and the longest day of the year June 20th, I got sick. This was also the second day of our first family vacation of the summer.
My wife and both kids had all been sick over the past few weeks and I thought I escaped it. Well not quite the case. I didn’t get that lucky. It turned out to be 48 hours of misery.
I had plans to do some very early morning research before the family got up. I had some stocks I wanted to gather more data on. I have a number of charts ideas that I wanted to send off to get made. I have a giant slide deck and some other research reports on AI that I wanted to review as I’m doing a piece about AI. That didn’t happen. None of this happened.
This post was actually slated to be a breakdown of a number of stocks and their charts that I planned to have done. As you can see those plans changed.
But maybe those plans changed for a reason. A good reason.
As you laid in the bed sick, you could literally see time tick away. There is nothing you can do if you can hardly function or even get out of bed. You’re too tired to even turn on or watch TV.
This turned my focus to time.
With the start of summer. One of my goals was to realign and focus on my time. With two kids, my wife and I were focused on getting how we spent our time in alignment and focus on the most important. I was actually doing some reading and research about time and time management.
After laying in bed for two days, that to do item is now the first thing I’m doing on my first day back from vacation.
How many times do you say or hear, there are not enough hours in a day. There just isn’t enough time. Time doesn’t slow. It only speeds up.
I realized this last month on my daughter’s 9th birthday, when my Dad pointed out that she is halfway to age 18. That will wake you up!
Time is arguably our biggest enemy.
We all have limited time. We have to get good at saying no. It’s very easy for others to spend your time for you.
Family, business or work, friends and activities is apart of the juggling act. It’s in how we prioritize that time.
We make time for what matters. Many things don’t make the what matters list. And that’s ok. We don’t have infinite time.
What stocks do I want to research or focus on? There are thousands of stocks. I select the ones I want to own and the others I want to follow. You can’t know about and follow them all.
In your business you can’t do it all. It’s impossible. You need to hire employees and become a master at delegation. When you’re working, you need an on and off switch. If you never can disengage, you’ll never escape work and be able to relax and unwind.
A month ago I heard two things from Greg McKeown that helped align my focus on time prioritization.
What are the essential things we're underinvesting in?
What are the nonessential things we're overinvesting in?
This ties directly to time for us. The underinvested needs more time allocated to it and the nonessential needs less time allocated. This has helped me in what’s essential and nonessential with what we do as a family. The same for my businesses.
Something throughout my research on time that I found is this. It’s one of the best visuals that I found regarding time management. It has already paid dividends for me.
Being busy is a decision. We make time for what matters. Prioritize what matters. I needed to be reminded of that.
Money can always be made again. Time cannot. It’s one of the most valuable assets. You can’t buy back more time. You never get it back.
Being sick sucked. But it did help clear my focus on time and how I’m spending it. I guess there really is a silver lining to just about everything.
The Coffee Table ☕
I liked Callie Cox’s post, My money story where she describes how her early childhood insecurities over money defined her financial life. A lot of how we act and treat finances can be traced back to our upbringings as children. Financial literacy and what you learn from a young age has a big impact.
With Oklahoma City winning the NBA championship the other day, I saw this updated visual of NBA championships by decade. It’s really cool to see all the teams that have won NBA titles.
Source: Boardroom
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