Wednesday, August 5, 2009

What activities are YOU doing today?

I found a very interesting graph of How Americans spend their time from the New York Times (via Neatorama blog) and it got me thinking....

"What activities am I doing today?
... and, more importantly, are they moving me towards my goals?"

The graph from the NYTimes.com seems to be a good starting point... but what if it was divided a little differently?

Perhaps into the following categories...
  • Required activities - cannot be delegated and must be done as part of life
  • Delegate-able - someone else could do these tasks, perhaps more efficiently
  • Productive / Advancement - tasks that move you towards your goals / output
  • Reduce-able - activities that may be done more efficiently or eliminated
  • Aspiration - activities of the "leisure class"
  • Sleeping - required... but not often examined as a change-able activity.
Here is what the graph would look like...

(Click on the graph to the right to see it full size)


Unfortunately, without access to the raw numbers from NYTimes.com, I was not able to group the color coded activities. Even so, you are able to see that there are plenty of activities in the Delegate-able and Reduce-able categories !

Another nice feature of the graph from the NYTimes.com is the fact that you can look at different variations of the graph .... unemployed, employed, by age group, by race, by education level... which is mildly interesting except that we need to remember that the study is based on a (presumably) large number of people and "your results will vary".

In fact, I hope my results vary since I aim to be one of the top 1% of the country which earns a million dollars per year. Does the graph have any answers that will help me move in that direction? I think so. Here are some ideas / recommendations that I came up with ... primarily for myself ... but you are happy to see if they make sense to you too.

Recommendation # 1 - Reduce or eliminate television viewing.
This is going to be a hard one for me... but there is no way around it. TV takes time away from my life and very rarely do I get something of value in return. Usually I turn off my brain when I turn on the television. I have to ask myself, "What side of the looking glass do I want to be on?" The side where things are happening or the side where the zombies sit.

Recommendation # 2 - Delegation is critical.
If I am going to become a millionaire, I will need to be doing "millionaire activities". If I plan on earning a million dollars per year, that works out to $500 per hour (assuming 40 hours per week over 50 weeks per year). While I should not spend money without getting a good value... I need to keep focused on activities that will yield the highest payback and delegate all other tasks to someone else.

The added bonus of this is that often the people who you delegate to are even better at the task than you are. For example, if I hired someone to landscape my yard who does it every day they would probably have better tools and be more organized to accomplish the tasks in a much short time. Even when their profit margin is figured in, it still is worthwhile for me to have them do it.
Quick note about the Scarcity vs. Abundance mentality... There are people out there who would argue that they can save a few dollars by doing things themselves. It took me a while to learn that there is no way you are going to save your way to a million dollars ... unless you already have $2 million dollars. I've seen too many people (and businesses) fall into the trap of trying to preserve the few dollars they have instead of reaching and stretching their capabilities to bring in many more dollars. The money is out there... you just need to figure out how it gets into your account. I recognize that it is not easy to let go and learn how to think & act like a millionaire... but I am committed to doing it. Otherwise, what do you have to look forward to?
Recommendation # 3 - Health is non-negotiable.
I have to take care of my own health. No one else can do that for me ... which means that I need to be more involved in what I eat to make sure it is the right stuff. Right now I am learning about vegetables and finding healthy recipes that I can quickly prepare for myself. Eventually, once I am more knowledgeable and making more money, I may be able to hire someone to cook for me. Until then, it is up to me... and I am OK with that !

I also need to exercise on a regular basis. You will see that I listed "Sports" as a "Required" activity on the revised graph. This means that not all exercise has to be boring. I like basketball and by getting into shape, I will be able to join a local "over 40" basketball league. I would really enjoy that and would get the added boost of physical activity !


Final thoughts...
I'm sure there are plenty more ideas that could come out of a graph of your daily activities ... including the possibility of an additional 5 hours per day through conversion to a polyphasic sleep pattern, but I will save that for another discussion.

What ideas do you have to improve your productivity and start "thinking like a millionaire"?
Leave a comment below !

d.Mark "Dave" Wheeler
The Incredible Shrinking Millionaire

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