Are you trapped watching the clock? Photo: badboy69

When I started a new job at a consultancy, I was quite surprised to find that when talking about money, everyone talked in terms of hourly rates and what they make an hour, rather than overall salary package.

Because every as consultant works at a chargeout rate, everyone thinks in terms of hours.  I found it amazing how quickly how dividing everything into hours becomes a mindset that influences actions.

Dinner out becomes 4 hours work, a holiday is worth 5 weeks work, a house mortgage – infinite.  It’s even worse for lawyers and accountants, who book their time in 6-minute intervals.

Working more and more seems to become beneficial!  A quick trip into work on Saturday means a few more hours for a few more immediate dollars.  The urgency builds, and suddenly you’re thinking if I don’t work back, I’m throwing that money away!  It’s not that you’re money-hungry, you just can’t imagine doing anything but trading your time for money.

It’s a trapping that many fall into.  You spend your time looking at the ground, chasing every hour.  The wide open sky, full of opportunity, is lost, as you run along hunting to justify your next hour.  The grand scheme of life is lost. Forest from the trees, and all that implies.

How can you take action to develop yourself when you start dividing your life into an hour by hour basis?

A broader perspective

Taking the bigger picture view alleviates the feeling of being in a pressure-cooker. Examples from my own life :

• Stop worrying about every last mark in your assignment and focus on how you can get the most out of what you are studying.
• Forget being a slave to the clock.  Think of your overall salary, and enjoy your time away from work by enjoying the money you have now.  See my last post on avoiding excessive farsightedneess by allowing yourself to enjoy the money you make now.

It’s all about clearing the mind fog.  Clear thinking comes when you are able to look beyond your own trappings and focus your thoughts on what you really want.

Benefits

By looking at the overall picture, you can start to understand the path mapped out for you.   How can you see where you are going when you have the world mapped into hourly, or worse, six minute segments?  By looking beyond your trappings , you can see where you are going.   It might be in a different direction to where you hoped.   Should you find yourself in a uncomfortable rut that looks like it will only extend – take action.  It’s not easy to get out of the rut – but identifying where you are at is the first step.

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