A cliché in old movies is a robber or bandit pointing a gun at the hero and declaring, “Your money or your life!” prompting the hero to consider which he’d rather give up.

Napoleon Hill offered, “Show me what a person does with his money and his spare time and I’ll tell you where they’ll be five years from now.”

Time and money.  Of all your resources, how you use THOSE will be the most important in relation to the measure of your life’s success.  If your journey is to a greater life success, begin your focus on those two resources. 

“Everyone has the same 24 hours” is the colloquial wisdom.  “It takes money to make money”, the colloquial wisdom continues.  For the minute, ignore colloquial wisdom.  The question isn’t how much time or money you have.  The question is how you use what you DO have.

No matter how much or how little your resources will always be limited.  One resource – time – is a completely non-renewable resource.  After you’ve paid living expenses, how much money do you have left, pennies or millions of dollars?  After you’ve slept, eaten and done a day’s work, how much time do you have left, minutes or hours?

How you use what you have available will be your largest determinate of success.

As with any resource there’s two direction:  Minimize waste, maximize the resource:

MINIMIZING WASTE

Eliminating Waste:  Where are you spending money that is frivolous or simply a waste (late fees?); where are you spending time that is frivolous (TV?) or simply a waste (looking for lost  again because you don’t put them in the same place?)  Are you spending time on people who you don’t enjoy and who don’t contribute to your success?  Are you spending money on things you don’t enjoy and don’t contribute to your success?

Efficiency:  Is it possible to outsource (house cleaning?)  Multi-task (although I don’t generally recommend it, there are some places where multi-tasking doesn’t detract from either activity, such as exercising to self-help tapes).  Create a habit or practice to get better (if you’re a heavy computer user, taking typing lessons is a way to radically decrease your time investment).

MAXIMIZING THE RESOURCE

Maximizing time:  Time shift (tape record television shows to watch at more opportune times, while fast-forwarding through commercials).  Using unused or poorly used time better (listening to audio books while driving); scheduling errands to save time; using auto bill pay.

Maximizing money:  Starting a passive income business, asking for a raise, investing, taking a higher paying job, starting your own business, debt snowball (look at the Wealth Success Forum for details on what a debt snowball is and how to use one).

MAKE IT TANGIBLE

Begin tracking your use of your spare time (even if it’s minutes) and your spare money (even if it’s pennies) today.  Rather than focusing on the problem, write daily what you did RIGHT with your time and money, brainstorming the “next” steps you can take.

Napoleon Hill’s prediction of five years?  I’m guessing that you’ll see improvement in five WEEKS.

Now that you get it, read on for Part II!

Copyright © 2000, Mark Farmer. Right to reprint automatically granted as long as accompanied by this notice and live Web link to http://LifeSuccessEngine.com