I am going to start this blog with a story. Then, I will explain why I vehemently disagree with the story and why it is in fact terrible advice.
The story
Imagine you wake up every morning with 86400 dollars in your bank account. It happens every single day. But there is no carry over. Whatever you do not spend is lost. How would you spend it?
You don’t know when it will stop, but you know that at some point in the future, it will stop. Will you make a better plan for using it?
We all have this account, but other than dollars, we are given 86400 seconds each day. How many of these seconds do you use? How do you use it? You should find the magic moments with the ones you love, forgive, be kind, learn new things, apologise, and don’t
dwell on the past.
All this sounds like great advice for the new year, except, it isn’t.
What’s wrong
Time is not a fungible resource that you can draw out and save. You can consume it as it happens. But most importantly, if you are sick, or stressed, or fatigued, a dollar is a dollar. But time, it’s not equal and should not be treated as such.
The ‘no balance carried over’ logic fails. If I buy a house for 1 million dollars, it will take me 12 days to pay it off, and then I have a house using the money part of the analogy. The opposite is true of time. If I am burnt out, I carry that burden over to the next day. If I am dealing with the death of a loved one, I am carrying that grief over to the next day. Your chronic illness or mental health has a significant impact on your time, but much less so on your money.
The starting point is not equal. If we all start with 86400 dollars, the starting point is equal. And, even if you have significant debt, within less than a month, you would be able to settle all that debt, and the starting point is equal. With time, that is just not true. The single mother who has to work two jobs, and travel an hour between jobs, and still cook and take care of her child does not have the same ‘time’ as someone from a different socio-economic background. Saying it is equal is just counterproductive and insensitive.
Time spent is not equal. We all need to sleep. Roughly 6 to 8 hours a day. But, sleeping in an air-conditioned room after a hot shower is significantly different than sleeping in a dirty tent in a refugee camp. The sleep time is not equal. The effect it has on your body is significantly different. A better analogy would be one person gets 86400 US dollars and the other 86400 Zimbabwean dollars. The difference is stark.
Why this story resonates with people
We are conditioned to believe in optimal productivity and the effect on success. If we are more productive for the 86400 seconds, we will be more successful, achieve more, and even if not immediately, things will change. But it won’t really. The threshold for money is about 1 million dollars. Or 12 days. With time, it can take a lifetime to change your socio-economic status, and some things, you will never be able to change.
The story promotes a false sense of control and equality, and we are taken in by the story because we want to believe in control over our destiny and equality.
What I hope you take away from this blog
Focus on actions, not time. Sleep enough. Don’t try to exercise for an hour with a broken leg. Know your limitations. Sleep, rest, and health management are not time thieves. They are life essentials.
Understand privileges and constraints. Be compassionate. Reduce blame. Fight for systemic change in society if you can. Even if it doesn’t benefit your directly at all.
Don’t fear ‘empty time.’ Schedule it. Sit on the balcony or in the garden with a cup of tea and do nothing. By yourself, or with family and friends.
Learn something you want to learn, even if it is meaningless. Learn lots of things. Learn to cook a dish. Learn to pay a song on a ukulele. Learn 5 words in another language. Learn to smile or laugh more. Learn to fix a car. Learn to program or code. Learn lots and have fun. Use your time as you wish. Make a decision to use your time as you wish and to combat hustle culture where we always have to be productive and become absolute experts at the one thing we are good at. Then look towards 2026 positively.
Looking forward – Jack of all trades master of none
To look forward to 2026, ask yourself what that phrase means. Jack of all trades, master of none. We use it to mean you lack focus. You can do many things but are not an expert in anything.
Then check who said it. It was Shakespeare. Except, that statement is incomplete. It should be:
Jack of all trades, master of none, but often better than a master of one.
It means the opposite of how it is most frequently used!
Is it worth all your time and effort to become the master because you were driven by half a saying? Were you driven by an analogy of time and money that values productivity over humanity? My wish for 2026 is that we all become Jacks of all trades, master of none, and on the way, we’ll have lots of fun.
May 2026 be a great year, and I hope to be able to write to you again in the new year.
