Is The Reward Worth The Effort?
When we talk about motivating ourselves and finding ways to be more productive, efficient, less time-constrained and so on, we are almost always talking about looking forward. We talk about setting goals, tracking our goals, planning our time, scheduling, making lists…
That’s all well and good, but sometimes it’s just not inspiration enough. Sometimes despite the best laid plans and efforts our plans for building wealth still fall victim to time and energy. So today I’m going to propose a new motivator, one that doesn’t rely on ethereal promises of good things to come, but one that evaluates where we’ve been and what we’ve done.
Gauging The Worth Of Your Time
Looking back at how you’ve spent your time and your days can help you gain some very valuable perspective on the worth/value/reward/effort ratio. I find this is most effective as a defense against procrastination, but it soon proves worthwhile when you expand it into other things like your work and personal time, etc.
This is very simple to do, too. All it takes is a few minutes evaluating your day at the end of it (broadened into time segments of weeks, months, and so on as you prefer). At the end of your designated time frame, look back at what you have done and what you gained for it. Look at what you gave of yourself and answer one simple question:
Was It Worth It?
Let’s suppose you spent the day idling on emails, or wishing you didn’t have to do a certain thing. When you look back at the end of the day you realize that the amount of actual progress or time spent on the tasks you were putting off was very small. And now suddenly you’ve lost valuable hours of your life, nurturing negative energy, to something you didn’t want to do. The reward ratio was not worth the effort and energy you gave to it because you gave the thing much more weight than it deserved, and prohibited yourself doing the things you really wanted to do –the things that would really allow you to build wealth.
Looking back and placing value on how we’ve spent our lives has a way of helping us come clear on it. Find out the real value of what you’ve been doing to motivate yourself to reap the best rewards for your time.
Sean Rasmussen
Wealth Creation Blog
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Tags: Build Wealth, financial past, rewards, Success, Wealth, worth