# I Started Treating My Time Like Money, and This Happened

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## Metadata
- Author: [[Shreya Badonia]]
- Full Title: I Started Treating My Time Like Money, and This Happened
- Category: #articles
- URL: https://medium.com/curious/i-started-treating-my-time-like-money-and-this-happened-72a4f7f8aa69

## Highlights
- we’ll know that almost everything in life is about time.
- We work hard to achieve our dreams to get to a time where we feel accomplished; we wait for holidays to spend time with our loved ones. In fact, our life is the time we are here or
- Life = Time we are alive
- , I spent my time like I was going to live for a thousand years. I was saying yes to everything and everyone; I was always available for calls and social. I was sleeping for 10 hours every day and was bingeing something or the other on Netflix or Prime Videos. I was doing what I was asked to with no mutual benefit and no sense of how valuable my time was.
- We don’t really understand certain things in life unless we find something relative to compare it with
- you only notice your weight when you see a skinnier version of yourself
- . I understood what those 100s of self-help and business books were trying to convey and why time is the most valuable commodity.
- To take action about time value realization, I decided to run an experiment for a few weeks — I planned to invest my time as if it was money.
- 1. I became mindful about my screen time
- What if I tell you that every minute of your day is worth $1000?Would you still scroll a million miles on Instagram or Twitter — like you do every day?
- , I learned that I don’t really have to check my phone as often as I do. It also made me mindful of the content I was consuming and made me keep track of how much time I was using on my phone for work and entertainment.
- Turning off my notifications.Leaving and muting groups I wasn’t interested in.I allotted 30 minutes to spend on Instagram and WhatsApp for leisure and connecting with friends.Limited checking my emails to 2 times a day and my Medium stats only once.
- 2. I learned to say NO without feeling guilty
- I would try to help as many people as possible; I would always support a friend or get on a Zoom call even when I didn’t want to.
- I had trouble saying no. Every time I did, I would end up feeling like I was committing a heinous crime.
- I learned that every person is trying to improve in life and business, but if I keep entertaining their requests, I will lose the time and energy to focus on my own progress
- Now I have become comfortable saying no to almost everything. I’d say no to a random podcast interview request, and I’d say no if I weren’t ready to meet a friend or a colleague.
- 3. I stopped replying to messages with no agenda
- thought I was obliged to respond to everyone sending me a message or calling me or tagging me. I had a notion that people who reached out to me were entitled to my time
- was my moral obligation to pick up every call, and if I missed some calls to call back and spend 5–10 minutes in a rhetoric conversation before finally getting to the point.
- It’s always easier to answer — “Hey, wanted to know how do you monetize your podcast?” compared to “Hi! How are you?”
- “If you don’t have something to do, please don’t do it here.”
- 4. My time was accountable
- I divided my day into three big chunks.
- Morning-writing and idea journalingNoon- social media promotions and meetingsNight- for podcast interviews, reading, and family time
- Since my time my worth more and accountable, I stopped watching random videos on Youtube and going down a rabbit hole on Twitter. I became aware of where I was spending my time like never before.
- “Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.” — Clint Eastwood