Time is Money.

Time is Money. And Wasting Time is Wasting Money.

The achievement potential of every economy depends on the fact how efficiently time is used in the economy. Time is the basic limiting factor of every production process and every political program, because, as we already know, time is the input factor which is needed for every good or service, beside other costs. As we have already discussed, nothing is for free, you always have to pay with your time if you want something, because you could do another thing in the same time.

Time is limited. Everyone has only 24 hours in a day. That is why time has a real economic worth. For example, you are paid for the working time you supply to your employer with money, you wage. In short: time is money.This is old, well-known and often cited dictum by Benjamin Franklin. And it is deeply true. If time is money, wasting time is wasting money. Every lost minute in a production process burdens the producing enterprise with costs. At last, these are costs which have to be borne by all of us, by the whole economy, because time has to be used efficiently to produce in a cost-minimising way to induce an efficient market price which satisfies all market members.

Using time efficiently applies to two different levels: your usage of your own time and your usage of the time of others. Let’s start with the first point: your usage of your time. From this point of view, using time efficiently does not mean making everything as fast as possible, regardless how well it is made. If you do a job carelessly and inattentively, only regarding the time, you have to do it again to really accomplish your mission. That is wasting of working time. And has to repeat every job, the whole economy lacks efficiency, because in the same time while you ware repeating your duty, you could have done another job, you could have produced more goods or services. And as you remember, the standard of living in an economy depends on the ability to produce goods and services. That is to say, using your time efficiently means that you should use as much time as you need for a job to do it carefully and completely, but not one minute more – as much time as necessary, but as little as possible.

Normally, we do not life and work alone. We need other people to produce goods, to supply services and to satisfy our needs. This insight leads us to supply services and to satisfy our needs. This insight leads us to the second point: if we stress the time of other people, we should use their time as carefully and efficiently as possible. You should always remember the fact that giving you time is the same as giving you money, with one important difference: you cannot give time back. If time is bygone, it is elapsed forever. Using the time of other people efficiently means observing deadlines and being punctual. If someone has to wait for you or your work, he or she loses time, because they could have done other things meanwhile than waiting. For example if a workshop of twenty participants with an average income of 500 Kyat per hour is delayed due to you by one hour you have created a loss of 10.000 Kyat. Imagine the loss for 60 million Burmese! As already mentioned this burdens the whole economy with costs and as a result, reduces the standard of living, if everyone does it. But there is another point; let someone wait for you is extremely disrespectful. And disrespectful behavior destroys relationships. But, remember, you need, you cannot do it on you own. That is why your punctuality is you benefiting finally.