The true value of time

“Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.”
- Brian Andreas

Many of us are familiar with the feeling of not having enough time in the day. Do you regularly find yourself M saying “I’m too busy” or “I don’t have time for that”? Time poverty particularly affects working parents and impacts both high- and low-income earners. Feeling frequently pressed for time is often accompanied by the perception that life is passing you by.

Research shows that time-poor individuals who feel constrained by competing priorities often become less active and less healthy, and have also been shown to be less helpful. Time is the number one reason people give for making unhealthy food choices and exercising less. Research also demonstrates that individuals who feel time poor experience lower levels of happiness and higher levels of anxiety, depression and stress. They experience less joy. They laugh less. Their productivity at work is diminished.

Time and money are both precious commodities that factor into people’s perception of happiness. In wealthy, first-world nations, there is a tendency to value money over time. But according