COST OF TIME TRANSACTIONS

Like money, time is also a convertible resource and can be exchanged for value. What is important like in financial transactions is ensuring that there is proper value for the exchange made. Many times we fail to make this level of consideration when we apply time in exchange of value. The issue, I believe, is that we fail to view it the way we view financial transactions, or else we would be ensuring that there is high level negotiations between us and the target for the purpose of profiting from the transactions. Expressions like ‘buying time’, ‘taking time’; ‘paying for time’ point to the fact that time is a transaction tool. How do we ensure that the cost in time transactions we engage in is commensurate with the value we seek from the transaction?

The starting point in considering this is to understand what exactly the cost of time transaction is. In elementary economics, we are taught opportunity cost. It is said to be the cost of choosing to do something against the other. We were also taught scale of preference as a way of arranging choices to determine which is more important and choose them against the other that is less important. While this has to do with choices, it does not exclude any form of choice. We can therefore infer that we can apply this principle in determining the cost of time transaction. In opportunity cost, we are taught that the other choice discarded is opportunity foregone. It means that when we choose one we gain the benefits in it while we lose the benefits of the one we forgo. The cost of time transaction is the event foregone to attend to another event.

TAKE TIME

This expression is often used when tempers are high. You will often hear one person tell the other, ‘take your time!!’, which in this context may mean, for someone to ‘mind what you are saying or doing’ at that time. In the context of time as a resource however, to take time would mean to do things gradually, at one’s pace. It could also be used when someone feels that another person is using time that belongs to them by delaying in attending to them.

When you choose to do things at your pace, it is possibly for various reasons, including that you do not want anyone to dictate your pace. What you need to do therefore is plan your events to ensure that as you take time in accomplishing the task, no time is wasted. Ensure that every available time is planned for including rest and relaxation time. No task should eat into the time for another task.

When another person seem to be taking your time, through delay in accomplishing a task, buy the time by engaging in something productive, so that you do not go out complaining that the person has merely wasted your time.

BUY TIME

When we talk about buying time, what comes to mind is delaying action to a more convenient time.  Though   this sounds wise, it is important to ensure that the process of buying time is not entirely wasted by frivolous actions that may not benefit you in the long run. The other angle to buying time is ensuring that the period you wait for an event is properly utilized. Even though it is a period of waiting, you can still buy it for your benefit.  For instance if you are waiting to see someone in an office and you are bothered that your time is being taken more than you expected, you can ensure that the waiting period is not wasted by reading up something. If you do not have something of yours to read, ask for a magazine or newspaper you can read. In this age of smart phone technology, if you phone is smart enough, you can actually read an article online. With this you ensure that your time is not wasted while you wait.

In this era when it appears that there are no enough jobs, graduates waiting for National Youth service time can actually engage themselves with certain jobs, volunteer work or apprenticeship. In some cases, such effort has amounted to greater opportunity even during or after the service year. In my case such job I did for three months before the service year, actually continued as part time during service year. The establishment became one of the places I trained people on development as part of my community development service.

PAYING FOR TIME

This is the end result of not engaging yourself with something productive while being delayed or while waiting for something or someone. It is the price paid for time wasted.  Whenever you fail to do something at the time you were expected to do it, intentionally or otherwise, you will eventually pay for that time. A typical example here is someone who for some reasons did not attend school at the time she was supposed to have done that. Whenever the person eventually gets to school, she would inevitably meet people who are younger. Part of the ways you may pay for the time are attitudes you may term insulting, but were only so to you because you are dealing with a younger age group.

It is more painful when the price is due to waste of time, by allowing an event encroach into the time for another event or by being lazy to engage in a task later than you should have done that. The price of such wrong attitude is usually having to break from another event to engage in the event you missed or completely losing out from that event. In some cases, people who were willing to assist you in doing something would have changed their minds resulting in you having to add additional effort in accomplishing the task.

Laziness, procrastination, indecision, fears are some of the reasons we lose time in our effort to accomplish tasks.  It is better to act and fail than not act. Time ticks and waits for no one. If you fail to plan you will end up not spending your time well. Every time you fail to spend your time well, you pay the price, knowingly or unknowingly. Remain time conscious and use your time well.