I was talking recently with a younger business owner I mentor and coach. He was telling me about going out, having fun, and some of the things he had been doing with his time. I didn’t question him about it. He’s an adult. How he spends his time is his decision.
The next night, we talked again. He asked what I had been up to, so I told him some of what I’d gotten done. “Man, you got a lot done. How do you get so much done in such a short period of time?”
For some reason, I immediately thought about the movie Heat. There’s a famous scene with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino sitting across from each other in a diner. De Niro’s character talks about not becoming attached to anything you aren’t willing to leave behind when necessary.
I’ve always remembered that scene, but over the years I’ve developed my own version of that philosophy. Be careful what you give your time to. The difference between what my friend and I accomplished during those couple of days wasn’t some secret productivity system. He had chosen to spend some of his time going out. I had chosen to spend mine differently.
Neither decision automatically makes one of us better than the other. There are nights when going out with friends is exactly what someone needs. There are also times when I need to close the laptop, stop working, and be present with my family. Rest matters, relationships matter, and enjoying your life matters.
But choices have consequences. We sometimes compare our results without comparing our decisions. We look at what someone has built, how much they’ve accomplished, the shape they’re in, the relationships they’ve developed, or the opportunities they’ve created and wonder how they did it.
What we don’t always see are the thousands of small decisions underneath those results. It’s hard to keep up with focused people while living a distracted life. I’ve become increasingly aware of that as I’ve gotten older. Time is one of the few resources I can never earn back.
That’s probably why my team knows I hate meetings just to have meetings. I don’t hate meetings. I hate wasting time.
If we’re going to spend an hour together, I want to know why we’re there and what needs to be different when the meeting ends. Every meeting has an opportunity cost. That hour could have gone toward solving a problem, creating something, taking care of my health, or spending time with someone I love.
Once the hour is gone, I don’t get another one. That’s also why I’ve become less impressed with being busy. A full calendar can create the illusion of progress. You can spend an entire day moving and still not move anything that matters forward.
Exhaustion isn’t evidence of effectiveness. A better question is whether I gave my time to what mattered. Sometimes that means work. Other times it means making a call I’ve been putting off, having a difficult conversation, taking care of my health, or sitting at the dinner table with my family and actually being there.
Effectiveness isn’t about squeezing productivity out of every minute. It’s about being intentional with the minutes you’ve been given. That’s an important distinction because the pursuit of achievement can become its own distraction.
You can become so focused on building something that you neglect the people you’re building it for. It’s possible to achieve everything you thought you wanted and eventually discover that you’ve become incredibly efficient at living a life you don’t actually want.
Focus requires knowing what matters before deciding what deserves your time. Once you know that, saying no becomes part of protecting it. That’s difficult because some of the biggest distractions in life aren’t bad things. They’re good opportunities, people we enjoy, work we’re capable of doing, and invitations we’re honored to receive.
Something can be good and still not deserve your yes. Every yes costs you something. That’s not a reason to become rigid about your time. It’s simply a reason to become honest about the trade.
There will always be another invitation, opportunity, meeting, or person asking for a piece of your attention. If you don’t decide what matters, the world will happily decide for you.
That conversation with the young business owner wasn’t really about him going out while I worked. It reminded me that all of us are making trades every day.
So when you find yourself wondering how someone else is accomplishing so much, don’t only study their habits. Look at their decisions. Pay attention to what they’ve decided deserves their time and, just as importantly, what doesn’t.
Then take an honest look at your own. You don’t have to be busy every minute or eliminate fun. You certainly don’t have to turn your life into one long pursuit of achievement.
But you should know what you’re trying to build, who you’re trying to become, who matters most to you, and what deserves the limited time you’ve been given. Time is more than a productivity tool. It’s something entrusted to us. Spend it accordingly. Because eventually, how you spend your time becomes how you spend your life.
