While everyone understands the value of time, very few actually value time. We are careful with spending money, but not careful how we spend time. Have you ever wondered where you spend your time in a day? I read a very nice article on the perspective of time which got me started on writing this post. This is definitely not a repeat or summary of that post. While I touch upon some points written over there, I am going to do an account of how I spend my time based on what is written there. So please read that first.


The author explains the 3 perspectives of time – past, present and future. Basically, in a given day how much time do we spend in the past, thinking about the future and work on the present task. We can’t spend all our time thinking about the past or worrying about the future. We cannot be spending 100% of the time in the present and lose all the learnings from the past. Likewise, not spending any time for the future means we join the YOLO (you only live once) bandwagon and take decisions in life as if there is no tomorrow. We need a proper balance of where we spend our time.


The author then suggests how much time to spend on the past, future and present using the 1/9/90 principle. You spend 1% of your time in the past, 9% in planning for the future and 90% of the time devoted to executing on the plan. A very simple principle indeed. Of course it does not mean everyone should use exactly those numbers. But I found it helpful and so decided to follow it. It has been more than a couple of years since I first read the article and hope I have improved during this time.


How does it translate to actual time? Given that a day has 24 hours, we can spend about 15 minutes (1%) in the past. You can spend about 2 hours planning for the future. The rest of the time you can spend on the present, executing your plan. In the past I used to spend a lot of time thinking about the past. I would be living in the past about how life used to be, or the fun time I had with friends, or ponder over the mistakes I made that would drag on for ever. Like the author mentioned “You either wish your life was like the ‘good old days’ or you wish certain things didn’t happen”. I was that person.


While I am not sure how long I exactly spent on the past but it definitely was more than 15 minutes a day (on average). Now I have drastically reduced my time in the past. I occasionally think about how life used to be, or how I made mistakes etc if I am in such a situation in the present. For example if I meet friends and discuss about a past event, I might spend more time on that and look at those pictures and recollect those memories. But I soon come back to the present. Or if someone asks me for a loan or advice or if I am about to invest, I think back to the time when I made mistakes and how I can correct them now.


I had the same problem with future. I would spend more time than 2 hours planning for the future. I would spend long hours on building projections, planning, designing etc. What am I planning? Well it could be my food habits, like what and how much should I eat to reach my goals. I would plan how many meals of healthy food I need to eat etc. I spend time on designing workouts depending on my goals. I could be preparing for a Karate exam. This could mean planning to practice kicks, Katas etc. If there is no exam in the near future, then I try to spend time on designing exercises that will build strength, flexibility, speed or stamina depending on where I am lacking at that stage.


Or I could be spending time on planning my investments to maximize capitals gains while minimizing taxes. Depending on the market conditions I could be planning my buy and sell tactics to change my asset allocation and so on. Now that we purchased a farm, I am spending a lot of time thinking about how to design the farm. It could be placement of the plants and trees, or pipelines or drips or sprinklers. What tools we might need and when should we do what depending on monsoons etc. All of that future planning takes a good chunk of my time. I spend more than 2 hours a day on future planning and I still do. This is one area I can improve, or may be this is what best fits me and perhaps need not stick with the author’s recommendation of 9%.


Spending 90% of the time in the present is where the action takes place. The idea is to execute all the future plans while avoiding past mistakes during this time. I really do execute as per my plan – eating healthy, exercising, and working on my projects. I enjoy this phase as much as I enjoy the 9% planning phase. Some tasks are boring, but once you have a plan, you just have to take action blindly and check the task off. However, I know some people who pretty much spend all their time in the present and live life like there is no tomorrow. These people follow YOLO to the tee. They spend all their money as fast as they earn and don’t have any savings.


As an example, this person that I know who is young, is spending all his earnings as if there is no tomorrow. He is not very well educated, so does not know anything about investments etc. He is working in an unorganized sector without any PF or other benefits. So his well wisher, who is also his employer asked me to setup a PPF account for him so there will be some savings. I went with the young man to his bank a couple of times, filling up all the forms and got him a PPF account setup. His employer started withholding some part of his salary and deposits that amount every month to his PPF account. Everyone was happy for about less than a year at which point the fellow wanted to take out the money.


When we asked what was the emergency for which he needs the money, his response was “Who knows if I will live for 15 years? I want to enjoy my money today”. Only then did I realize that he was spending way too much time in the present and almost no time thinking about the future. Well, to be fair, he must have spent some time about the future, which is how he came to the realization that he might not live for 15 years and wants to spend money today. Spending too much time in the present could also be bad. Of course, that does not mean we have to be inflexible. I love this quote from the author’s post.


Work hard when it’s time to work. Play hard when it’s time to play. Enjoy listening to Grandma’s old stories while she is still alive. Meaningfully connect with your friends. View children through the eyes of wonder with which they see the world. Laugh at jokes and life’s absurdities. Indulge your desires and passions. Save for a rainy day, and save enough to spend when it is sunny.


Like the author mentioned, sometimes we think about the future instead of spending time in the present with the people who matter. I need to be mindful of my thoughts and take corrective actions. I sometimes wander off into my own thoughts thinking about some project or some bug in code etc while spending time with my daughter. In those fleeting moments I miss what my little one is explaining to me. There is always some work to do or some problem to fix, but I need to pay full attention to people who matter the most in my life. I am still working on it.