Time Investments: Choosing Cross-Pollination

Time. There are so many things people say about it.

Time flies. Time waits for no man. Time is money. Time heals all wounds. Better late than never. Every second counts.

And that just scratches the surface.

All of us have our own individual beliefs about time. And while it might look like we "all have the same 24 hours in a day", today I want to focus on how we spend that time...

And whether or not we are experiencing those spends as investments.

Investments vs. Spends

Let's be honest, spending time and investing time aren't the same thing. And when we look at money, I think we can see the difference.

When we spend money, we exchange it for what we need (or want) right now.

When we invest money, we do so without the expectation of an immediate payoff. We invest into the possibility of creating something that extends beyond the original contribution.

And similarly, when it comes to money, most of us do BOTH.

We spend money on our fancy coffee for the day. And we invest money into an RRSP for when we are retired. We spend business funds on both Post-It Notes, and business insurance.

Which means, if we extrapolate the same concept to time, we'll likely see the same pattern.

But money has a constraint that time doesn't necessarily have:

A dollar can only be spent once.

I can spend my money on a latte every day or make a donation to a meaningful organization.

But time spent can ALSO be time invested.

I can spend time cleaning the bathroom and simultaneously invest that same hour in listening to a podcast that broadens my perspective.

The hour only happens once. But the value created within it doesn't have to be limited to that hour. Which means...perhaps time isn't as constrained as we think?

A New Perspective on Time: Finite vs. Infinite

Is that "there are only 24 hours in a day" comment coming back to you? It's not that it's incorrect, per se. There ARE only so many hours in a day. I mean, we can't manufacture an extra Tuesday afternoon because we didn't get everything done.

But what if we've confused the quantity of time available with the value that can be created within it. As explored above, while an hour (or even a minute) may only happen once, that doesn't necessarily mean it can only create one thing.

I can spend an hour having coffee with a friend AND invest that hour in a relationship.

The time itself hasn't multiplied. Its value has.

But the concept doesn't matter if that's not what we're measuring.

Value vs. Productivity

If I invest $100 and eventually it becomes $110, I can easily see that I've generated a return on my investment. There's a tangible understanding that the original contribution created something beyond itself.

What might that look like for time?

Our generally accepted answer seems to be productivity: if time is finite, the solution is to DO more things within the same amount of it. Have more meetings. Send more emails. Buy more things. Automate more tasks. And in the technology-heavy world we're living in, it often looks like humans spending less time with humans.

But doing MORE within an hour isn't necessarily the same as creating MORE value from that hour.

This is where the value of time investments related to productivity breaks. We may LOOK more productive, but we haven't necessarily generated any movement.. And if movement is value, does it really matter that we've done more in that hour?

So, if productivity as a measure doesn't work, what might?

Adding People into The Equation

We've all been in one of those meetings where 5+ people spend an hour together, maybe even in exploratory discussion, yet don't seem to create any tangible business value from the time. Maybe we've been honest about it. Maybe we just participate because it's expected.

It might look like: 5 people, 5 updates, 5 systems we review, open conversation (maybe), some ideas (maybe executed), same format next week.

In this format, we are NOT using time as a multiplier. We're not even using time productively. And why? Because we're not taking advantage of what I've started to refer to as "the Results of Time."

Results of Time = the unique knowledge, experience, perspective and wisdom each of us has individually accumulated through the time we've already lived

Here's the key: You and I may have both lived through the same hour yesterday. But we didn't generate the same Results of Time from it.

Multiply that by ALL the hours we've already experienced individually.

What you know is different than what I know. And when we come together in conversation, I get access to everything I know AND the possibility of everything you know.

But even THAT is still only addition.

The multiplication happens when something you know changes how I think about something I know. And together, we create something neither of us brought into the conversation.

Now that's an interesting MORE to explore.

Turning Time into Wisdom: An Example

Have you ever had one of those moments when someone says something, and it makes you think about something you know (maybe a book that you read)? You share that, and then it enables the other person to use that information for something new?

That's the power of time invested together.

Every person we encounter, including each of the other 4 people in our scenario room, is carrying the Results of Time we didn't personally have to spend. And when we meaningfully bring together those multiple Results of Time, THAT'S where the multiplier comes to life.

And it's available in each and every conversation we have; both in business and personally.

An Additional Multiplier: Personal Cross-Pollination

There's actually another time multiplier available to us, too; the fact that an investment in one portfolio can create value in another portfolio. And the multiplier in this case is understanding how we can use knowledge (both from our own Results of Time and the cross-pollinated versions) in multiple contexts.

When we give ourselves permission to apply something we learned in a personal context (let's say, a sneaky way for us to get our kids to eat peas) to become relevant in a business context (maybe you need to get your client to complete a deliverable they haven't done yet?), well now we're really cooking with gas.

And the value at the end of this equation is now getting HUGE.

Breaking the Limits

That 24-hour limit? It's absolutely real.

But it only limits our principal. Not our return.

If I take my 24 hours, minus what I want to invest in sleep, that's my starting point. Personally, I give myself 16 waking hours. Now, I can spend those 16 hours until the balance reaches zero OR I can invest some of them in things/conversations/activities that continue generating value after the original hour is gone.

I could share something only I know. I could ask a question I'm thinking. Each of those things might only take a moment; yet probably feel like a super easy thing to give.

Which is precisely why the math multiplies (instead of adds).

At first, I have only my insight. Then, I add your insight PLUS generate new insight between the two perspectives.

Math 🤣

Making the Investment

Most of us are caught in the "time spend" trap. We have to report on X (which takes Y amount of time). We have to drive to point A, which also takes a specific amount of time. And slowly, we watch our 16 waking hours dwindle to 0.

That means, we end every day at 0.

The investment framework flips that. It asks:

How do I invest some of those hours in ways that allow their value to keep travelling after the hour is gone?

Because, in that case, even IF time itself is finite, the contribution we create within it doesn't have to be. And if growth is what we're looking for, be that in revenue or personal development, then an anticipated destination of zero is probably not going to get us there.

But a multiplying formula? Where your Results of Time and my Results of Time are always generating more value? That's sounds WAY higher than zero to me ;)