Stop Valuing Other People’s Time Over Your Own
Start making a difference where it matters.
There is no price you can put on time. Warren Buffet, aged 91, is one of the wealthiest men in the world — you know he’d swap it all for being back in his 30s. We all understand this. But we also all, for some bizarre reason, default to placing more value on other people’s time than our own.
This mistake is why we drop what we’re working on to address someone else’s request. Or why we obsess over refreshing our inbox and responding to messages instantly (god forbid we make anyone wait because we’re working on something important).
By doing this, we limit our time to work on high-impact tasks — the important but not urgent stuff that will make a meaningful difference. But unfortunately, this means we end up working on lower-impact tasks.
This cycle leads us to become “busy fools”, feeling like we’re doing loads of “stuff” without making any meaningful difference.
Here’s how you can snap out of it:
Remember that your inbox is a list of other people’s priorities.
When you drop what you’re doing to help someone tick something off their to-do list, you value their time over your own. So shut it down from time to time and enjoy the blissful periods of working on your terms.
Stop saying yes so quickly.
You may feel helpful if you’re constantly working on other people’s to-do lists, but you won’t impress anyone important if you’re not completing your own priorities.
Block out periods for working on your top priorities.
This makes it easier to manage requests because you can respond by saying, “I have time to work on that on Thursday”, rather than immediately.
Figure out what time of the day notifications are helpful.
Adjust your settings according to what works for you. For example, you might want to dedicate the first hour of the day to checking in with your team and then pause notification for a period of focused work after. There’s no one-size-fits-all rule here, as everyone works differently. Just pay attention to your own routines and optimise toward that.
Stop saying, “thanks for your time”
In follow-up emails, start saying, “I found our call valuable” instead. I forgot who gave me this advice, but it’s a nice shift in mindset to help you value your time more.
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