'Omnia aliena sunt tempus tantum nostrum est.'
'Nothing is ours except our time.'
- Seneca, Epistulae Morales Liber 1.1, Lucilio suo salutem.
I'm currently reading Peter Drucker's 'The Effective Executive'.
The author sounds like a greek philosopher of management in this book. The book isn't just for executives or for people at the top, it's for people who make decisions in the normal course of their work but have substantial effect on the performance of the whole organization.
Chapter 2 of the book discusses the importance of time management. Here's something worth reflecting on:
'Time is also a unique resource. Of the other major resources, money is actually quite plentiful.
We long ago should have learned that it is the demand for capital, rather than the supply thereof, which sets the limit to economic growth and activity. People-- the third limiting resource-- one can hire, though one can rarely hire enough good people. But one cannot rent, hire, buy or otherwise obtain more time.
The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it and no marginal utility curve for it. Moreover, time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday's time is gone for ever and will never come back. Time is, therefore, always in exceedingly short supply.
Time is totally irreplaceable. Within limits we can substitute one resource for another, copper for aluminum, for instance. We can substitute capital for human labour. We can use more knowledge or more brawn. But there is no substitute for time.'
Please excuse some economic jargons, but the paragraphs above have been clear enough to establish the great value of time, the fact that it is a limiting factor, that it is perishable, and that it is irreplaceable.
One good question to ponder on: How do we spend time?
The time we have isn't different from what other people have, still limiting, still perishable and irreplaceable. The difference lies in how people spend it.
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