Time quotient is a person’s core ability
Explore the philosophy of life | Pursue self-growth
"Self-talking"
"What is the biggest mistake in life?"
The Buddha said: "The biggest mistake is that you think you have time."
The wonder of time is that it is invisible and priceless, and once it passes, it never returns.
The well-known inspirational speaker Jay Shetty gave a speech about time on Youtube, which was heart-warming and thought-provoking.
"A person can live an average of 78 years in their lifetime.
We spend 28.3 years sleeping, which accounts for almost a third of our lives, but at the same time 30% of people are struggling to get a good night's sleep.
We spent 10.5 years at work, but more than 50% of people want to leave their immediate jobs.
Time is more valuable than money. You can make more money, but you can't get more time.
We spent 9 years on TV and social media.
6 years spent on chores.
It took 4 years to eat and drink.
Spend 3.5 years in education.
Spend 2.5 years on dressing up.
Spend 2.5 years on shopping.
Spend 1.5 years on raising children.
Spend 1.3 years on commuting.
There are only 9 years left for us. "
The older you get, the more you feel that time is a very mysterious thing.
Before the age of 30, everyone is trying to optimize IQ and actively improve EQ, so I thought that IQ and EQ ultimately determine the height of life.
But after the age of 30, I really feel that most people have almost the same IQ and EQ. What really determines the height of our lives is actually a truth that is highly related to time——
How a person treats time and uses time determines what kind of person he can become and what kind of life he can live.
How we choose to use time, time will choose how to shape us.
1
Time Quotient:
Attitude towards time and ability to use time
In 2003, scholar Steven Hull put forward a concept-"time quotient".
The so-called time quotient is your attitude towards time and your ability to use time to create value.
Everything is a trade-off.
There are costs and benefits to doing anything.
Just like when you get home from get off work, you are relatively free from 8 to 10, and you can choose to do many things:
Fitness, writing, learning, Weibo, watching dramas, playing games...
A person with high time quotient, he is cautious about time, good at making the best choice, and will always take the initiative to spend time on the most important things.
He left formal school at the age of 10 and became his father’s apprentice. He started his career in the printing industry and became the most successful printing businessman in Philadelphia in his thirties. He drafted and signed the American Declaration of Independence, with his head printed in green light. The shining hundred-dollar bills have been given many labels by the outside world. Politicians, educators, writers, diplomats, and successful businessmen, each with a shining identity, can be called a versatile.
This person's name is Benjamin Franklin.
In such an open life, what has achieved such a rapid improvement?
The answer is definitely not because his IQ is online and his emotional quotient is touching, because in this world, there are many successful examples of low double quotient.
The truth is that Franklin established his own value standards very early, actively controlling time, becoming the master of time, rather than being dominated by time, and "time quotient" is his core ability to achieve himself.
What best reflects his high time quotient is the "five-hour rule" he applies to life——
I spend about an hour deliberately studying every day, that is, one hour of study every working day, five hours a week.
This law runs through his entire adulthood, and his actions include:
Get up early to read and write
Set up a list of virtues and track results
Verify your creativity and ideas
Form a book club
Introspect in the early morning and night
When Franklin takes that one hour seriously every day, and uses that one hour every day to cultivate his habit of reading, reflecting and acting. In the short term, he is not much different from others, but in the long run, This is the best investment he has made in his time.
On the other hand, many of us are anxious to kill time, Weibo, Douyin, video, how to be happy once they are a little free, so it is only natural that we have not achieved the achievements of others.
Franklin’s five-hour rule reflects a person’s high time quotient——
Over time, those who seem to be the smartest and most successful are life-long growers who use their time to think and learn continuously and deliberately.
Psychologist Li Zixun said: "A major flaw in contemporary Chinese is the inefficient management of effective time, which has caused many social problems."
Time quotient is a kind of low-level thinking, and people with high time quotient have built a value system of looking at time and using time in their hearts, treating time as a friend, so that they can distinguish the priorities of things in a limited life. , Throw into those valuable habits, and ultimately master your own destiny.
"Time quotient" is one of a person's core abilities, and its level determines what we can do well and what we can accomplish in a limited life.
If you want to become a person with high time quotient, you need to work hard on the following three types of time:
Time
Dark time
Flow time
The more you invest in these three types of time, the more you will be able to build your core competitiveness and ultimately achieve yourself.
As Haruki Murakami said: "Whatever is won by time, time will definitely testify to it."
2
Recovery time:
Invest time in things with compound interest
Warren Buffett believes that the key to his success lies in reading 500 pages of books a week;
Bill Gates said that for 52 years, he has read a book every week. Throughout his career, he will also set aside two weeks of vacation every year for reading;
Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, will arrange two hours of thinking time for himself every day;
Larry Page will take time to have in-depth conversations with every employee of Google, from doormen to technical experts, always in an open learning state;
……
These outstanding and successful people must be very busy, but they are always willing to devote their time to activities that will return more knowledge, innovation and strength in the long run.
Perhaps at the beginning, their daily achievements are seldom small, but if you look at the time scale, they will eventually achieve great achievements.
The time invested in things with compound interest effects is what I call "complex time." It's like compound interest. Over time, a small habit will bring huge returns.
Franklin's one hour a day above is an example of using complex time, and the time I devoted to writing is actually a typical complex time.
At the beginning, I simply shared my thoughts and wrote completely self-interested. I didn't cater to readers and were not restricted to others. There were not many people who read and liked them.
But with the passage of time, I have been writing on the official account for more than 3 years now, and the readers and reading volume have also made a qualitative leap, and I personally have improved my thinking and expression skills. A bigger step has brought new opportunities to my work and life.
Therefore, in a limited life, we have to be cautious about time and spend time on things that can give you compound interest.
What levels of activities have the attribute of "complex time"?
read
Elon Musk is the founder of Tesla, Space X and many other companies.
When people asked how Musk built the rocket, his answer was: "read."
Reading is the fairest, no matter what age you are in, what circle you are in, you can easily get the knowledge you want through reading.
Outstanding talents in various fields are keen on this high-return low-input learning method, such as Buffett, Bill Gates and so on mentioned above.
When you devote time to reading, this not only improves our knowledge, but also allows us to gain new insights and insights from it, thereby changing the way we look at problems, do things, and ultimately change our destiny.
Reflection
Rui Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Fund, always records the problem in the employee's public system when he finds a fundamental error in the company's operation or strategy, and then finds time to reflect with the supervisors to find a solution.
Reflection is a very important part of personal change. It refers to reviewing past gains and losses, missed opportunities, wrong decisions, successful experiences, and reference and guidance for the future at regular intervals.
Some people just think a little more, but easily distance themselves from others.
As the saying goes, eat a ditch, gain a wise. In fact, after eating a ditch, if you don’t reflect, you won’t be wise. A person who is not good at reflection will not gain a wise after eating ten chaps, while a person who is good at reflection will grow a wise man himself when he sees others eating a chap.
Reflection is not an innate ability of human beings, but it can be deliberately trained.
When you continue to invest time in reflection, you will gain a higher awareness and more effective actions, so that you will always be in the process of continuous iterative growth.
practice
Amazon’s CEO Bezos once said: “Amazon’s results are a function of how many experiments we do every year, every month, every week, and every day... If there is a 10% chance of getting 100 times the return, then every time you You should take a gamble, even if you still have a 90% chance of failure."
Through long-term practice, Bezos finally established the entire company. Amazon has never simply come from his whims.
No matter how many books we read and how many cases we have reviewed, we will inevitably make mistakes.
But even if it fails, we still have to have the courage to practice and try and make mistakes instead of staying in fantasy.
Because only by continuously putting time into practice, we can truly enhance our cognition and obtain tangible achievements.
If you still feel discouraged, think about Edison. He did more than 50,000 bad experiments before inventing the alkaline battery, and more than 9,000 experiments to improve the light bulb. However, until his death, he obtained nearly 1,100 US patents. .
So, ask yourself, what kind of practice are you going to do?
Sign up for a dance class? Join a book club? Go for another degree? Delve into a new programming technique?
No matter what it is, life is an experimental ground, and the more you do, the better you will be.
In this anxious and busy era, we need to do the opposite, know how to slow down, and think carefully about where our time should be spent.
Put time into reading, reflection, and practice, and you will get much more rewards than you originally expected under the blessing of "re-time".
3
Dark time:
Seems useless
The hands of the clock and dial in everyone's hands go the same fast, but not in everyone's life.
To measure how many years a person has lived, it should be calculated by thinking time.
It’s like someone picks up a book every day, but he doesn’t see much insight, because during the time he is reading, he simply remembers the things in the book and does not involve reasoning, and only thinking about reasoning can understand one deeply. Things, through the surface to see the essence, such a process of thinking and reasoning is your thinking time.
Therefore, Liu Weipeng proposed a concept of "dark time" in the book "Dark Time"——
You walk, ride in the car, line up, run, eat... all these times can be "dark time".
It is "invisible and easily overlooked time" and "time without direct results."
In these "dark times", if you can always treat them with care and give them the things and problems you want to do, you can use your thinking time to the extreme.
Liu Weipeng said in the book:
"These times seem insignificant, but the accumulation of time will have a huge effect. People who can make full use of dark time will invisibly gain a large amount of life. You may find that such people seem to play no less than you. No more than you, but somehow it is farther than you."
In fact, using "dark time" to think about things and issues of concern at the moment, using the state of "divergent thinking" in the brain.
"Divergent thinking" is a kind of global thinking. Compared with "focused thinking" in a large period of time, it allows external information to scatter in various areas of the brain, so new ideas may emerge at any time.
At this time, the brain enters a "default mode network". It will rediscover the memory of the past, imagine between the past and the future, and then connect different ideas. This is the source of creativity.
Just like many scientists are still thinking about scientific questions when they are taking a nap and walking, many times the answers will suddenly appear at these moments.
Sometimes, I also struggle with the problems encountered at work, and I still have no idea after thinking hard for a long time.
At this time, my mind will often be haunted by this question. I will unconsciously think about it when I eat, when I go to the bathroom, and even when I sleep, the problem will suddenly arise.
And the solution often appears at a certain moment in the "dark time", which makes me feel surprised and excited.
In fact, many things can be done with "dark time":
On the way to work, you can think about today's work schedule;
When working out, you can listen to history and philosophy lessons;
When walking, you can imagine your future plans;
……
In an era of fragmentation, it is becoming more and more difficult to find large chunks of time, but “dark time” is everywhere. If you learn to use “dark time” rationally, many problems can be solved easily, and many inspirations will come unexpectedly. Meet.
These seemingly useless "dark times" are actually very useful.
And Liu Weipeng also said:
"People who are good at making use of dark time can invisibly spend a lot more time than others, so in a practical sense they can live many years longer than others."
4
Flow time:
Being present can create value
Someone asked, how can a person have enough patience to grow up step by step?
My answer is to let myself rebuild my perception of time.
Modern fast life allows us to get quick feedback on most things.
As soon as your finger touches the screen, the phone will immediately give you the message you want.
As long as you place an order at Meituan, the takeaway will be delivered to your home quickly.
As long as you click on the video call, the person you want to see will appear on the other side.
The world begins to shape our perception and experience of time in an urgent way, but for reality, this perception of time is not real.
No tree can suddenly rise from the ground, and no mischievous child can suddenly grow into a vigorous teenager. Nothing can take root immediately with your thoughts.
All growth requires you to be immersed in the long river of time, and the time to immerse us in the matter itself, I call it "flow time."
Psychologist Mihari Chiksenmihalai proposed the concept of "flow"——
In the experience of "flow", we can control our consciousness, reshape our inner order, devote ourselves to one thing wholeheartedly, and even enter the state of selflessness.
The famous cartoonist Mr. Cai Zhizhong described his state when he was drawing like this-
"If you concentrate on doing one thing, you will definitely find this feeling--
The universe is with you, and time flows slowly through your body like water. You can only hear the sound of a pen brushing on paper, and you can't even hear your heartbeat. You feel that time and space do not exist, you feel that no stroke is superfluous, and every action is complete. "
The state described by Mr. Cai Zhizhong is a kind of "flow" experience.
The reason why he can get the experience of "flow" is that he puts himself in the "flow time" and is immersed in the matter of painting itself.
When a person is immersed in "flowing time", he can be present in the present, that is, he can forget the past, forget the future, concentrate on this, here, and this matter, and reach a state of "no thought".
When you are in the present moment, those thoughts and thoughts will naturally flow out of your heart, pushing you to achieve the ultimate in what you are doing, and even create miracles.
Just like in the movie "The Pianist on the Sea", the protagonist "1900" was originally a member of the band, but every time he played, he started to float at the end. The other band members couldn't keep up, so they had to stop like an audience. Watch him perform.
In fact, when 1900 sat in front of the piano, he entered "flow time", and in the present state, the notes naturally flowed out of his hands without any hesitation. There is no deliberateness, like running water.
In the "flowing time", you can be in the present moment and keep your mind in a clear and pure state. At this time, a "wisdom language" from nowhere will suddenly appear, allowing you to create by what you do Out meaning and value.
Everyone is a creator, and the key is that we can make good use of the "flow time" to enter the present state.
Just like sunlight on a piece of white paper, there will be no change, but if you use a concave-convex mirror to focus the sunlight on one point of the white paper, the white paper will burn after a short time.
Therefore, if you want to make good use of "flow time", you must know how to focus your attention fully and stay focused at all times.
For how to focus attention, you can refer to this article "In an era of scarce attention, focus is your key to success or failure".
Final words
A person's life is like a white horse passing by.
In our hearts, there are often two voices.
One voice is to urge us to work hard, hoping that we will continue to enrich ourselves and encourage us to grow.
One voice is to persuade us to pursue comfort, let us be lazy and give up on ourselves, not enterprising, and limit the possibilities of our lives.
Every night I go to sleep and wake up early in the morning, these two sounds are killing each other in my mind.
Who will win?
It is the voice that we are more willing to hear in our hearts, the voice that we have been pouring and fostering.
How to view time and how to use time is the most important choice in a person's life.
And a person with a high time quotient will always work stupidly in "return time", "dark time" and "flow time", surpass the so-called IQ and EQ, and become a winner in life.
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