How To Multiply Your Time
Lessons from Stoicism and Rory Vaden.
It was the year 39 BC.
Crazy Caligula was emperor. His deranged antics made all fear him.
Perhaps he was paranoid; perhaps he was jealous. But when he heard that an outspoken politician had a remarkable gift as an orator, his blood curdled.
Caligula knew one thing for sure, this measly politician’s writing was ‘sand without lime’. He was a mere ‘textbook orator’.
Caligula grew angry day by day as he heard the politician’s speeches. Perhaps he was paranoid; perhaps he was jealous.
He ordered the politician to commit suicide. His orders were law. No more outspoken ‘textbook orators’.
But fate would have it that the politician would die 26 years later.
How did the politician escape death by the hands of one of the ruthless emperors?
Apparently, Caligula was told that the politician was extremely ill and would soon die, anyway.
Seneca narrowly escaped death from Caligula. He knew the value of time.
The art of multiplying time seems impossible. We all have the same 24 hours a day. the same 1440 minutes and 86400 seconds.
Then why is it that some people are better at using their time than others.
It’s actually quite simple, and our friend Seneca is here to help us.
Treat time as a commodity.
“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing which it is right to be stingy.” — Seneca, On Shortness of Life.
Time is our greatest asset. It is our only non-renewable resource.
When we waste time, it runs out and we can’t get it back. It is the only thing that is both uncertain and limited.
To multiply time, we must respect it.
Live life for your own self.
“So you must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not loved long. Just existed long.” — Seneca, On Shortness of Life.
Most time-management tools — whether to-do lists, calendars or apps focus on how to best fill your time. They focus on how to be busy.
Busyness and multiplying time are not the same. Rather, they’re the opposites.
It is always your choice to be busy. It is the greatest distraction to living. The whole point of multiplying your time is to eliminate time for yourself.
It is to be more productive and shed time for your hobbies, self-care, and your family.
No amount of preparation is enough.
“He who bestows all of his time on his own needs, who plans out every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the morrow.” — Seneca, On the Shortness of Life.
Seneca believed that one should never delay happiness. Live right now.
Life will never be in your full control. The one thing you can control is what you spend your time on.
You can’t micromanage your time. But you can spend it on what you enjoy the most.
No amount of preparation will ever be enough.
Quit planning and start doing. You only get your life once. The present will soon slip away and will be unseized.
Carpe diem.
How does this help us multiply time?
“To multiply the time you have, give yourself the emotional permission to spend time on things today that will give you more time tomorrow.” — Rory Vaden.
Rory Vaden is an author who has a trick that can easily multiply your time.
Look at time as an asset that you will spend on urgent, important and significant tasks.
Go beyond asking what is your most important task. Think about the tasks that can make tomorrow better. Introduce the future to your present.
This means that when you think of your tasks, sift through them.
Eliminate
This is an essentialist strategy. Think of Warren Buffett’s 5/25 rule. Give yourself permission to ignore certain tasks as they will not give you time tomorrow.
Automate
What tasks can you automate to free up time in your day? In the simplest sense, using apps like Grammarly is automation. You automate your proofreading and a computer checks your work.
Today, you can pretty much automate a lot of things. Here are a few that surprised me:
- Whatsapp text messages
- Filling in online forms
- Scanning documents.
By automating your time, you can get a ROTI: return-on-time-investment.
You can use that extra time doing whatever it is you enjoy or working harder on your business, side hustle, or hobby.
Delegate
If you’re anything like me, I find it hard to delegate tasks. I feel that I am best equipped to do the task to the standard that I want and need.
But delegating tasks can be as simple as getting your kids to clean their rooms. Splitting the house chores between your family.
Don’t stop at just your house. Get a professional illustrator or an artistic friend to design your book cover. Get someone to look at your budgets.
Delegating can be simple. It doesn’t have to be awkward and headache-inducing.
There you have it. The Stoics had fascinating ideas about time and the shortness of life. They gave us the philosophy to multiply time.
Rory Vaden helped us shed time off our schedules by knowing when to eliminate, automate, or delegate.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” — Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Fatima Sultan is a writer, tutor and self-proclaimed nerd. She writes about life and its many excitements and disappointments. She also apparently likes referring to herself in the third person. You can read more of her writing by subscribing to her free newsletter.
