# What a chicken wing can teach you on how to spend your time

> The three things of invaluable importance in organizing your life are prioritization, focus, and discipline.

**Published by:** [Thoughts from MC10](https://paragraph.com/@mc10/)
**Published on:** 2022-10-16
**Categories:** productivity
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@mc10/how-to-spend-your-time

## Content

I was walking around my neighborhood last Saturday afternoon: the sun was shining, and the air was warm. The area looked like it always looks: a residential suburb with lots of families and young children.But the scenery suddenly went unusual when I turned the corner that accesses the main street. There I saw a LONG queue of more than 90 people occupying the entire sidewalk over a big distance: they were all waiting to go into the local fried chicken shop.This scene was quite surprising to me. Why would you queue that long for some fried chicken?! I decided to ask one of the tons of people in line.A chicken surpriseI found out that the local shop had come up with a “promotion” valid for that day only: they would give ONE large chicken wing for free to each of the first hundred clients to claim it.ONE chicken wing.I estimated the waiting time in the queue to be well over 30 minutes. I know that in that shop, normally, a chicken wing box costs $15 and that includes 3 large wings. Some complex math (😅) shows that this “special deal” was effectively valued at $5.Now, I love fried chicken, don't get me wrong, but would I trade 30+ minutes of my time standing in line on a sunny Saturday for a $5 perk?When I asked myself this question and glanced over that huge line again, my head started spinning. Seriously.How can all these people value a $5 gift more than their own time?Time is the only scarce resource we all have to deal with: nothing else is even close to it when it comes to irreplaceability. Queuing for more than half an hour hoping to make a whole $5 out of it, means that you are virtually setting your hourly rate to less than $10 per hour. Which should sound ridiculous if your time investment is in expectation of some fried chicken.How I think about my timeMy thoughts quickly went to a concept I had first encountered years ago from Naval Ravikant, an entrepreneur and VC best known to Twitter folks as the “Angel philosopher”. He had come up with an interesting “policy” for himself: assign an insanely high hourly rate for your time, and spend money to save time according to that figure. Naval @naval Value your time at an hourly rate and ruthlessly spend to save time at that rate. You will never be worth more than you think you're worth. 382 12:15 PM • Jul 11, 2016 This strategy may sound outlandish when you hear about it first. But if you think a bit through it, it is not.Let me explain the way I interpret it.I value my time more than anything else. I choose to use it productively. I aim to maximize the time I spend in activities that leverage the skills I’m best at. This means I rarely engage in mindless time-wasters or do things without a specific purpose. This also means that I don’t feel bad asking somebody else to cover areas where I am not that strong or where my input could be limited due to my lack of knowledge.I love relaxation time, spending time with family and friends, playing sports, and the outdoors. I do all of those things intentionally because I realized that investing part of my time that way is helpful to my mental and physical well-being. In general, I believe that spending your precious time in a way that best aligns with your life goals and objectives, is the most effective way to actually “feel good”.The pre-requisite to achieving this state is, of course, to first assess and understand what indeed is most important for you.Essentially, you have to draft a plan, set the direction, identify your utter commitment, and then run with it - even if that may mean giving up some free fried chicken on a Saturday afternoon.In a business context, in my role at Bankless Consulting, the web3-native consulting firm from BanklessDAO, I'm committed to growing our footprint and ensuring client’s success. This includes contributing to the project outcomes and having smooth project delivery, all while hitting certain financial metrics that guarantee quality deliverables for our clients at a reasonable profit for the business.I do have a lot on my plate so I focus my attention on the largest leverage tasks, and I complete them myself to the best standard I can possibly achieve.I delegate, automate or ignore the smaller tasks that do not require my valuable and unique skills to get done, or the tasks that I am not qualified to take on (reminder: I’m good at a few things but I’m also not good at many things). I choose to maintain oversight over stuff that may require my input and where my expertise could be helpful, but that’s pretty much it.Ça va sans dire, life doesn't always run as planned so there are occasions when I deviate from these principles. But that's beside the point: once you set a certain direction, you'll stick with it whenever possible.Since you cannot “mine” more time, it should be obvious that once you spend it on a low-value activity, that time is gone forever. This inevitability leaves you worse off because of your poor decision.If you choose to spend your time on low-value endeavors, then you must make sure that you truly made that call consciously.Unpredictable circumstances may force you to act differently from your ideal case. That's fine, and that's life - just be aware of it.ConclusionAt the risk of being mistaken for a productivity guru (which I’m not, nor want to become), I believe most people could yield life-changing benefits from a hard look at how they spend their time, day in and day out.With a finite amount of time available to do all the stuff you want to do, three things are of invaluable importance in organizing your life: prioritization, focus, and discipline.I am glad I went for that walk last weekend. It sparked a reflection that reinforced my intuition: standing still in a line trying to scrounge a chicken wing is hardly worth your time🍗.

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