Time

The past couple of years of living with the spectre of Covid have given plenty of us time to reflect on how we spend our time and what values we have in our work and social lives.

Economically, we’re told many states have lower unemployment than pre-pandemic and whilst a significant government debt from support payments has been built up, the underlying desire to start living again meant NSW Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet called us to look forward to a “bright Summer.”

The impact on working life for many from a major event such as Covid might be the most significant any of us has seen or will see in our lifetimes.

Many organizations will now be questioning just how many levels of management are needed when individuals in their teams, when sent to work from home, largely got on with it with little fuss.

Is the typical working model of going to a workspace to be overseen from 9-5 by a manager to ensure you keep working, only take your 1 hour for lunch and two tea breaks now defunct?

I’d always hated the 9-5 type roles. Not that I was either an early starter or a night owl by preference but the logistics of it never made sense.

Instead of a steady flow of people on public transport and roads across the day, we get bottle necks of rush hours with high traffic and expensive peak rate transport costs.

When I was working in London, I’d end up having to take earlier and earlier trains in the morning just to get a seat.

It doesn’t even help those who services these workers – cafes and food providers have to try and staff for 7-9 am breakfast and 12-2 lunch period with idle time either side.

Supermarkets get rammed on weekends as people’s work life must be completed between Monday and Friday.

Now workers have had more experience of being able to work as fits their life, most will be resistant to return to structured hours permanently, although I expect most will want to get back in person time with clients and co-workers.

Assuming a balance between home and office is agreed, many workers are considering retiring later than they ever planned according to this article

When I ask clients about the ‘why?’ for needing financial planning most will initially go down a route of thinking of ‘I want to pay less tax’ or ‘I want enough money to retire early.’

But when you press them again on exactly why that is important, a common answer is that people want more time.

One of the great drivers for me to set up my own business, was to take back control of my time.

I still work the same hours in a week as before but in a different order. Sometimes I work in the evenings, sometimes I start early in the mornings. Occasionally, I tidy up a few things while our son naps on a Sunday.

Time has no monetary value, it has no currency. We all want more Time but we don’t know how much of it we have left.

Whilst I love my job, I don’t want to spend so much time doing it that I can’t spend time with family and friends.

So, what value to you is time? Would you work for a lower salary to have an extra day’s leave each week?

The outcome of good financial planning isn’t how much money you have on your last day on earth.

It’s about using the money earned from your hard work, to give you the greatest return on your finite time.