Listening to a podcast featuring Ray Dalio, investor and founder of one of the world’s largest hedge funds, I was reminded how the world of investing provides us with a wealth of transferable skills and ways of thinking. At its absolute simplest, investing involves spending money (or some other resource) with the aim of acquiring a return of greater value. Spend money to make money, in other words. If the investment is good, the return will be considerably greater than the money originally invested. If the investment is poor, the return will be less.

Our use of time (the ultimate finite resource) comes with similar opportunities as investing. Properly spent, we can effectively buy ourselves more time with wise investment of our time up front. Poorly spent, our time only creates a vortex for more time to be consumed and less to be returned for it. I am reminded of a maxim from Jock Willink: “discipline equals freedom.” While discipline may seem rigid and restrictive up front, properly applied, it creates space for greater freedom and opportunity. This practice and mindset of discipline is what makes for a good investor of time (i.e., life). Meal prepping every Sunday, for example, is a disciplined practice that involves an up-front investment of time. I do not particularly enjoy spending a handful of hours cooking up large batches of food and packing individual meals for the week into a dozen tupperware containers, but I do enjoy and reap the rewards of the freedom involved in having more time at my disposal during the week and the financial and physiological benefits afforded from healthy, home-cooked meals. This, unquestionably, is a wise investment of time. Unsurprisingly, all of the things that we typically label as generically “good” life practices -- discipline in diet, exercise, lifestyle choices, sleep, stress abatement, etc. -- also fall into this category of being a good investment of time.

If you feel like you never have enough time, like time slips through your fingers or just disappears, it’s worth considering that perhaps you are a poor investor. Put your choices to the investment litmus test: ask yourself, is this investment of time yielding more time down the road? More life? More freedom? Is this a disciplined practice that adds order and creates space for more of the good things in life, or am I just dumping my time into bad investments? The honest answers may be uncomfortable, but I’d be willing to bet they’ll lead you to better investments.

- PS

10/20/17

• Bulgarian split squat - 3x15/leg

Then...

• Every 5 mins for 20 mins

• For time:

• 40 squats

• 15 toes to bar

• 15 burpees

*record fastest and slowest