Constructiveness Categories

Do you want to make the most of your time? Work a little harder now so you can relax for a lot longer later? Everybody only has 24 hours in a day, but what you do now can make a big difference in how much time you can spend on things you want to do later. Or you might want to spend the same amount of time on something but get more out of it. Either way, this post will share a good way to sort how you can spend your time into three categories: wasting, maintaining, and building.

Let’s build up to the best part by starting with wasting – wasting time and wasting money. Wasting not only doesn’t help you gain anything in life, but it instead drains away opportunities and resources that you could otherwise use to make your life better. Sitting in a meeting you aren’t relevant to and have no interest in? There went an hour you won’t get back. Did you just let an old subscription that you’re not using auto-renew because you weren’t paying attention to it? That’s $100 out the window! Did you really have to lose those things?

One important caveat about waste is that a treat here and there in moderation is not a waste, and rest time is for recharging, so such things should be viewed more as maintaining than wasting; you have to take care of yourself, too! 😊

Maintaining is activity that is necessary to preserve what you have that doesn’t create anything new for you. You have to cook meals and clean up after yourself, and while that takes a lot of time and effort, it sure beats the alternative of going hungry. Sleep doesn’t get anything done, but try to get anything done without it!

Since it generally costs a lot less (in either time or money) to spend the time and effort to care for what you have instead of neglecting and then having to replace something, maintaining is usually a good use of your time and energy. In addition to caring for things around you instead of letting them go to waste, maintaining is important for enabling the third category your time and effort can go to, building.

Building is when you create or acquire something that allows you to do more. Buy a bicycle and you can travel further than on foot. Investing your money instead of keeping it under your mattress will (usually) cause you to become wealthier instead of slowly getting poorer from inflation. Paying for a training program that lands you a higher paying job is an example of building that will almost surely pay for itself and lots more. Come up with a slick studying technique and learn twice as much in an hour as you used to.

Building is where not wasting your time really becomes worthwhile. Do enough building for a long enough time and eventually, you’ll be able to waste as much time as you want. But by then you’ll be in enough of a habit of building that you probably won’t want to slow down very much of the time. If you want to be a builder and accomplish a lot in your life, take comfort in knowing that building will eventually become natural if you make it a habit (start small, as explained in Process Goals vs Progress Goals and The Value of To-Do Lists), and the more you improve at building and the more you build, the more joy you find in doing it!

Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to constantly build that you end up burning out. Be fine with some waste and plenty of maintaining along with some building. The best way to build the most over time is to gradually form an intentional habit of it here and there, slowly working to achieve more and more. Take your time. But by being mindful of these three categories for spending your time, you can more easily take charge of moving your life forward in whatever direction you want to go!