The Economic Value of Time…

By Benjamin Franklin, Commentary by Jeffrey Reeves

Father Abraham’s recounting of the advice delivered by Poor Richard’s Almanac during its twenty five years of publication continues with some admonitions about chasing a life of leisure. These observations may be even more appropriate today than they were 250 years ago, when they were written.

“Methinks I hear some of you say, `Must a man afford himself no leisure?’ I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says, Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and, since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.”

Right off the bat Father Abraham chastises the questioners. Leisure is the result of work but not its aim. If you want to have leisure time, beware wasting time at work because the hour spent on the internet, or reading the paper, or discussing last night’s game will lengthen your day at work and reduce your time of true relaxation with family and friends.

Self employed folks recognize this relationship more readily perhaps than those employed by others. It’s easy to measure the value of time wasted when it translates directly into lost opportunity, lost sales or extended hours completing a critical project for a revenue producing client.

It’s easy to measure the lost leisure time when the ‘leisure’ time spent at work keeps you from a golf date with friends, your child’s sports event or musical recital; when the long awaited anniversary dinner has to be postponed at the last minute; when the weekend barbecue goes on without the host, who had to go into the office.

There’s more from Father Abraham…

“Leisure is time for doing something useful;

Now there’s a mind bender for the modern American. Who thinks of leisure being ‘useful?’

As a starting point, let’s define ‘work’. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it this way; ‘activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something.’ Hmmm. According to that definition, everything is work. Playing tennis, watching TV, reading, wrestling with the kids, laying in the hammock taking a nap all require you to ‘exert,’ to ‘do.’

Father Abraham got it right again. All of those activities are useful all by themselves and all of them are work. Their leisure value comes from your intention and attitude, not from the activity itself. Their ‘useful’ aspect derives from the benefit you derive from the activity – the work – and perhaps from the control you exercise over the choice of activity.

There’s more…

“this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; for A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things.

The option of having a choice about how to spend your time and energy results from being diligent. You’ve seen it a hundred times; the slacker remains a slacker all his or her life; the hard worker grows in stature at work and in the community. The slacker ends up with few choices and the diligent person with many.

Leisure is the reward of work and laziness is trying to gain the reward without doing the work, which – by way of observation – is just as much work as that done by the diligent person.

There’s more from Father Abraham on this topic…

“Many, without labor, would live by their wits only, but they break for want of stock; whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect.

Following Father Abraham’s thoughts from the last entry, it only makes sense that those who ‘live by their wits only’ and avoid labor eventually come to a bad end. Consider where the petty thieves, drug dealers, con artists, even organized crime bosses end up. ‘They break for want of stock.’ There’s nothing of value in their choices or their ‘work.’

Those who work diligently, on the other hand, and take control of their money, their time and their lives arrive at a different place.

Sometimes my workload writing, helping clients and mentoring other advisors is so heavy that I have to hire out some chores around the house. My favorite chore to hire out is mowing the lawn and trimming around the sidewalks, trees, planters and bushes.

The 72 year old man that does this work for me is a fine example of a person who has diligently made his way through life for the past four decades on his own terms. He is respected and admired by everyone who employs him, works only when he chooses based on his age and energy level, but lacks for neither money nor leisure.

Father Abraham makes one more point…

“Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a large shift; and now I have a sheep and a cow, everybody bids me good morrow.”

I recently attended the 50^th reunion of my high school graduating class. I was amazed and surprised that so many of my classmates remembered me for who and what I was 50 years ago. Some of those memories were accurate and others were not. The party girls from ’58 were still seen as party girls. The jocks were still the jocks. The elite still elite.

If you start out as a pleasure seeker you may never recover to be anything better in the eyes of the world. The ‘diligent spinner’ started, I’m thinking, with just one sheep. He worked hard, made wool enough to also buy a cow and now ‘everybody bids [him] good morrow.’

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