We’ve all heard the old saying, “Time is money, and money is time”. A lot of people live their lives by that motto, and put in long hours to reap financial benefits. But is time and money really two sides of the same coin, or completely different concepts all together? I believe the latter, and will explain what I believe the proper relationship between time and money should be.

What is Time?

Time is not renewable. Time is finite. We are running out of it daily. Each of our lives is an hour glass, however, none us know how much sand is left. Coming from this perspective, who wants to spend 60 hours a week working? Personally, I don’t care how much I can make from overtime; I would rather spend that time with the ones I love or doing something enjoyable. However, many of us think that working long hours is the only way to increase our financial security.

What is Money?

Money is merely a construct designed for trade. At first, everyone had a trade and people bartered services and products. However, after the amount of unskilled laborers increased, money was created to provide a person something of value for rendering a good or service. Money is not a status symbol; it is not an indication of self worth. People with tons of money merely have a trade surplus, that’s all. Also let me re-emphasize, that money is merely a construct used to provide a person with something of value for a good or service. Time has nothing to do with money. For many people, this may sound foreign, but when you look at the world around you will notice a particular pattern. People who make the most money spend the least amount of time working. Who works harder and longer, the cement layer, or the CEO of the Cement Company?

Work the Least Amount of Time for the Most Amount of Money

The key to becoming wealthy isn’t working long hours, but making the most amount of money for the least amount of time. While you browse Facebook, is Mark Zuckerberg working? Of course not! He’s probably somewhere drinking a beer and eating wings! So how can we make a lot of money in little time? It can be accomplished, and here are a few ways to do it.

Automated Products

Today’s market is filled with automated products. By automated I mean things that make money without continual labor. It takes labor to make these things, but after that initial labor no more work is required (except maybe some marketing). Things such as iPhone Apps, books (print and audio), music, and royalty generating creations only require labor to create them. There is no continual need to work because the value isn’t in the time you put in, but the product.

Subcontracting

The biggest misconception that a lot of entrepreneurs have is the belief that they should only sale services and products that they can create or provide themselves. That couldn’t be further from the truth! You don’t have to be a web designer to start a web development company! Find a few designers who can do the work, throw a mark-up on it, and sell it to your customer. Say a contractor charges you $1000 for a site; you charge your client $1300 and make $300 off the deal. A lot of people get caught up in whose making more money and that is foolish. Why would you care if the web designer made $1000 if he did all the work? You just made $300 doing nothing! You just made money and used NO TIME! That’s a perfect set-up.

Investing, Loaning, and Buying Assets

Do you think that it’s a coincidence that many rich people are investors, own income generating property, or are bankers? Of course not, because doing these things are the ultimate execution of the “make the most amount of money with the least amount of time” credo. In my dad’s building, there’s a guy known as the “Dollar and a Quarter Man”. He recently inherited a large sum of money and then started a loaning business. He would loan money to people and require that people pay him back $1.25 for every $1.00 they borrow. Last I heard business was good. The problem that many of us have is that we buy liabilities instead of assets. Buying a car for personal use is a liability (because it is taking money out your pocket), but buying a car and using it as a taxi is an asset (because it puts money in your pocket). To make money, we should only buy assets, because assets allow us to make money without using any of our precious time.

It is my hope that this article has given you a true understanding of what the proper relationship between time and money should be. You can never become rich working long hours, because it takes away too much time. Instead, decide to create a situation for yourself where you are making money using little to none of this precious resource. And hurry because time is of the essence!