Having finally watched Interstellar I can call myself something of an expert on the space time continuum. Today i’d like to share some of this high brow stuff with you in order to help improve your quality of life.
The notion in the movie that stuck out was how to fold time using a wormhole to take it from being a linear 2-D concept into a third dimension where you could move through vast distances in a short space of time, a you can (perhaps) clearly see via the image below.
Now, I have to admit, I did nap a bit during that movie, so I think I got it right.. but anyway, here’s the corollary that I drew from it, and why.
The Squeeze
If we think of time as purely linear, and therefore each second of the day is equal to another, we make bad decisions. Instead, we should think of it as peaks and troughs. For example, an hour of sleep is not equal to an hour of exercise in the gym. Although both are necessary, one hour is ‘cheaper’ than the other. If you swapped the hour of exercise out of your day, it would make a huge difference.
Similarly, there is a very important part of your day in the evening, which I call ‘The Squeeze’. It fits between major barriers, those of work and sleep.
In this chart I show how transition times have more value than sleep and work time too, this could be the time that you spend making breakfast for the family, or using a commute effectively. Similarly this could be a less productive time if you don’t (or can’t) use it well.
The squeeze hours are limited further by transition (from work) to home, and dinner, which, if done correctly can offer equal ‘squeeze’ value, but often doesn’t. My diagram puts us into 2 hours of key time in the evening, after dinner and before bed. Clearly it could be longer or shorter based on circumstances. The question now, is, what is this time worth?
I’m talking about Manufactured Spend again, in case you hadn’t grasped that yet.
I hear many people say that they can use 1-2 hrs on their way home from work to buy $5000 in gift cards and liquidate them, earning (in the glory days) $250 prior to costs. That makes their hourly wage worth $125. Ideally these people aren’t earning $125 per hour when they think this is a good idea.. and as such they leap on the chance.
However, the thing that suffers is the ‘Squeeze’. These people aren’t going to go into the office 2hrs late and tell their boss they were out MSing so get over it. They are also not likely to give up sleep to manufacture spend. The Squeeze time though.. that’s dead time, so why not use it productively?
As my diagram would have indicated, I believe the Squeeze time is more important than work time and sleep time, but it is easy to forget that. To help understand, consider the salary and benefits you receive, and its purpose:
The income from a job does the following things:
- Provides debt service payments (pays student loans that got you the job in the first place….)
- Provides present day expense needs (spending)
- Provides future expense needs (saving)
It’s an important thing, don’t get be wrong, but we work for ‘the future’. The very notion of working for a living vs having financial independence is that we are giving up our free time today in order to build enough wealth to enjoy our free time tomorrow.
That means free time is very important. More so than your job, and more so than your sleep. You can both work your life away, or sleep your life away. Both have the word ‘life’ as the common denominator. Life is the free time. Life is the ‘Squeezed’ into these little gaps around commitments that you value more, such as working or sleeping.
Next time you are standing in line in a store to buy a gift card, consider the value of your 1hr of free time, and if this is the way to best spend it. Consider that you could be spending it connecting with a loved one, setting up a side business, studying for higher education, or any other number of things.
Bravo! There’s no doubt in my mind that MS can lead to great values, but one of the reasons I don’t do very much of it is because of the time. If I can travel relatively often (and comfortably) using other methods, I’d rather spend my time doing things other than running errands for MS. I love it as an ability to top off or to hit a specific goal, but I can’t imagine what I’d have to give it up to take it to the next level.
I’m all about efficiency with mine, I really want to keep it under a couple of hours a month if at all possible. Time is short enough these days!
I really liked the movie and also took some naps through it! If I understood correctly it involved compression of time involving the 4th dimension. If I could I would take advantage of that and go back in time to figure out how to be more efficient or get triple the amount of gift cards in the same amount of time. I take my significant other out on dates to the store. I read my professional articles and hold the lady’s hand while I stand in line. That’s triple dipping on my free time 🙂
Well, you’re the Doc so I’m sure you know better…these dimensions always confuse me. Glad to see you are showing your date a good time, while in line at a store, reading an article 🙂
I enjoyed the topic. When you first join this game the points/time ratio is fantastic when meeting min spends. After that, there are rotating 5% categories to maximize with once a month split payments on the SallieMae; and of course RedBird. After that, I start to question whether It’s worth it to pick up 1500 MR rewards for a 10-15 minute stop.
It can be rewarding to MS toward sign up bonuses. Then the monthly activities for valuable points/miles curency, like UR and SPG. After that, any other bonus spend.
Hurrah for keeping a sensible eye on the time spent MSing. I don’t do that much of it, and really, now that AP is gone, if it weren’t for RB, I’d be doing little or none.
As it is, I just “paid” for all the incidental expenses from last week’s vacation in MX with the Arrival points earned with RB. Thank you, RB!
The idea that spending 2 hours a day on MS is valuable depends on your reason for MSing. My goal is to have enough miles/points to take one vacation and visit family twice a year. I don’t need a million points a year for that, and sign up bonuses help keep the cost in time way down.
Yeah, I’m with you… but next up I plan to challenge my own thinking 🙂