The labor theory of value blinded the classical economists, pre-1870.
They thought that labor produces value. Then why is a diamond worth so much, even one that someone just happens to see shining in the dirt, which he picks up?
Here is economic logic: the expectation of value calls forth the labor and time and raw materials required to meet future demand . . . and pocket the money.
Here is life's grim trade-off: time vs. money.
When you are young, you have little money. Your time is not worth much. So, you learn how to get ahead by saving money and investing time.
This becomes habitual. It shapes your behavior. It shapes your mind. It is a trap. Most people never escape this trap. This is another reason why most people are never highly successful.
"It takes money to make money." We are told this early in life. The people telling us this are successful. Why? Because they learned no later than age 25 that they must save time. The best way to save time is to spend money.
People who are successful do not spend money to waste time. They treasure their time. Why? Because they have to pay for it.
They can increase their income by increasing their output. They increase their output by shifting from investing time to investing money.
They identify those areas of their lives that absorb 80% of their time, but produce only 20% of their output. They consciously shift to those areas of their lives that produce 80% of their output with 20% of their time.
This is the best way to get rich. You must identify the time-sucks that absorb most of your time without producing most of your satisfaction-producing output.
Here are a few steps in reallocating your time.
1. Budget your TV time. My wife and I started this in 1974. We paid 25 cents for each 30-minute show we watched, news shows excepted. We donated the money to charity. We cut out viewing to an hour a night.
We use a TiVo type device. We race through ads. We will not watch non-news shows live. We will not watch ads. It costs us $5 a month to rent the device. It's worth it.
Pay $4 a night for classic movies. Don't watch free reruns of mediocre movies or expired TV shows.
2. Pay for information. Do not waste time searching for information. Subscribe to specialized sites that glean the good stuff. Pay the editor to invest his time. Use him to overcome Sturgeon's law: "90% of everything is crap." Search out productive sites.
3. Hire specialists. We understand this regarding routine tasks that we hate, such as mowing the lawn and washing the car. But the principle is harder to honor when it gets close to our work. We think we cannot be replaced. The time sucks start sucking our time. I don't proofread my articles carefully. I hire a specialist. I also have a forum for typos. Some readers read my articles at 1 a.m. my time. At 3 a.m., I read the posts and make corrections. This is good; it's free.
Most homeschool mothers are convinced that they must invest many hours a week to produce well-educated children. This is a mistake. The videos on the Khan Academy and the Ron Paul Curriculum are far better for student learning than a mother who uses textbooks that she has never actually read. She may spend 20 hours a week teaching instead of one hour reading weekly student essays. She thinks her kids are better off this way. They are worse off. They become dependent on her for learning new material. Then they go off to college. Mom isn't there to select the textbooks, to plead, to nag, and to intervene. It does not take a helicopter curriculum to teach well. A student-piloted curriculum works far better. Mothers should allocate their precious time more productively to other family projects. But the vast majority will not turn loose of textbook/workbook education. Their time dribbles away. (I have tested this with Google AdWords. Parents do not respond to ads that promise huge time savings or their money back. They pay a heavy price that is academically self-defeating for their children.)
4. Social media. It's not that social. Ill-informed people post trivia. You have to skim it. It's not worth skimming. This is junk mail on a colossal scale. There are diamonds in the dirt, but not often enough.
What you need is to be part of a by-invitation-only group of inveterate readers who post gems. Put the division of labor to use.
That's what GaryNorth.com's forums are for. The paywall screens out the crazies and the time sucks. You must pay to avoid them.
The day I gained 100% control of Tea Party Economist, I killed the forum. The idiots went away. I don't care where they went. My gain is someone else's loss.
MY SCHEDULE
If you do not systematically cut the time sucks out of your life, you will not maximize your productivity.
I am not in favor of buying leisure with my money. I am in favor of buying productive time.
For me, the most tempting time suck is over-researching. This began in college: writing term papers. The older I got, the less I needed to research. I had read a lot. I remembered a lot. But the habits of age 19 extended into age 49.
I am now coming to the end of my road. I dare not kick the can. Fifty-seven years is long enough. I must write my three-step Christian Economics: the citizen's edition (150 pages), the student's edition (500 pages), and the teacher's edition (1500+ pages).
You may notice my strategy: shotgun, rifle, scope.
I will write all of them from an outline. I rarely use an outline, but this time I must. I must not forget to deal with something crucial.
Most of the short one is already written. I wrote it 30 years ago in two weeks: Inherit the Earth. I will use Naturally Speaking for the teacher's edition: fast. Then I will remove two-thirds of the teacher's edition to produce the student's edition: cut and fill in the gaps.
I think I can do all three in two years -- maybe 18 months. This is the 20% that will produce 80% of the value.
Then I will re-read all 31 volumes of my economic commentaries: 8,500 pages. I will insert in-paragraph references into the teacher's edition, e.g., [Genesis: I:4:A.] This will take two years. Then I will re-read Mises' Human Action, Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State, Hayek's Constitution of Liberty and all three volumes of Law, Legislation, and Liberty, five books by Röpke, five books by Kirzner, and at least five books by Sowell. I may even tackle Weber's Economy and Society once again. But probably not. That is a task for younger men. I will add footnotes as I go along. This will take two years. And then, to make sure I have missed nothing crucial, Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law, volume 1.
This is the polishing stage, not the creativity stage. If I die before I finish polishing, that will be a small part of the 80% that produces 20% of the value. No big loss. But I will publish preliminary versions, just in case.
I will not re-read any books before I start writing. That would be putting the cart before the horse. That would be a time-suck. It is too easy to wander down rabbit trails.
I will then produce YouTube videos for the student's edition and the teacher's edition. That will take a year.
I want to finish by age 80.
Then I will go on to my next project: a book on social theory. Topic: sovereignty, representation, law, sanctions, and succession.
Then on to my Sunday School videos. I have ten topics in mind, times 12 lessons.
Then, if I am still able, I will write a church/civilization history.
I have no time to waste.
Neither do you.
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