What is time?

There was a post on X I read today about valuing your time. The gist was that since this person had waited 9 minutes to save $4, they valued their time at $27 an hour. I get the point being made. Time is valuable and you need to set the value of your time.

It is an inarguable fact, every second you waste is a second gone. So is every second you use wisely. Gone.

If you just ruminate too hard on this fact, you may start to produce a light salty discharge from the edge of your eye. Each second I am not with my spouse is one less second we are together. And every moment I am not producing something is one less thing I will have produced or will have influenced others to produce. When I sit down to play my daily round of Super Mario Kart, I am truly devaluing my time in a devastating way because not only am I not producing value, or spending time with my spouse, daughter, or grandchildren, but I paid Nintendo $60 bucks for this game and then like $80 a year for a subscription and, and... wait.

As I approach this terrifying mental precipice, thankfully I remember one important thing. Value is complicated.

Spread it out

To bring this back to a professional context, you absolutely need to value your time. Time is your most valuable resource. But it important to value your time not just in a monetary context, at least not all of the time. For a set amount of time each day, thinking that time is money is important. In the original example, if that 9 minutes could truly be monetized for more than $4, then it probably was a waste. But is that every really the case? And this consistent need to make your time immediately valuable is particularly dangerous. As professionals, it is hard to deny that all time is actually money, but sometimes it is just a down payment on future money. Example: training. Training is expensive in monetary, time, and energy costs that add up quickly. But all of that is actually a down payment for the future.

The more you know about the work you need to do, the less time it will take to achieve. This leads to more time or money for all the other things. (Hopefully both time and money.) And, I will submit, career oriented training is something that both you and your employer should be contributing to. Some of your work time and some of your personal time should be spent learning about your profession. The value of this is better than any compound interest will ever pay.

Just be careful

The danger is thinking that every second should be assigned a comparable monetary cost. Why? Because there are a lot of experiences that are infinitely more valuable than others. Spending a day with your grandchild at a theme park when they ride their first roller coaster is (approximately) 1.7495 million times more valuable than learning a tech skill when compared one to one in your heart. And you can invert that equation when it comes to figuring out which is going to let you feed your family (and by the way, theme parks aren't free either). You need to do both, in a proper balance that only you can do. And it is never going to be easy to decide.

In either case, you need to spread your time around and set thresholds for all that time. Some tasks are only valuable because they give you supply you energy or rest. I don't race Bowser and Princess Peach for the Mushroom Cup to make money or memories, I do it to reset my brain and give it a break from feelings and learning. And sometimes, spending 9 minutes waiting at a gas pump leads to a post that leads to inspiring someone else. And overall that is worth more than the nine wasted minutes, don't you think?

Louis Davidson (@drsql)

Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums

You’re invited to a Datavail webinar hosted by PASS Data Community Summit, on March 13. Join JP Chen from Datavail and Kellyn Gorman from Redgate as they dive into the basics of cloud computing and highlight Microsoft Azure’s leading role. In this session, you'll gain insights into planning and executing your move to Azure SQL with a complete strategy that covers discovery, assessment, migration, and optimization. Register for the webinar for a chance to win a FREE 3-day ticket to PASS Data Community Summit 2025 or a PASS Summit On Tour conference ticket!

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, o...

Haripriya Naidu creates an Extended Events session: If you’re a DBA, how many times have developers asked you to check whether a particular stored procedure…

Andy Brownsword rolls back the clock: A few weeks ago I demonstrated the simplicity of performing point-in-time database restored in Azure Managed Instance. Whilst that has…

Lori Brown performs maintenance: I have a customer who let me know that some of their tables had a large amount of unused space in…

Hopefully, everyone is taking backups of the key s...

Our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs, now in...

In this post, the fifth in our series, I want to i...

This is my (late) answer to my own invitation for ...

Patching, we all know how important it is, for those of us with a presence on prem that is, or even SQL on Azure VM, without the correct...

Common Reasons for Emergency SQL calls If you are ...

The digital landscape is rapidly evolving, and the...

We’re thrilled to announce the return of Redgate Summit London, set to take place at the iconic Tottenham Hotspur stadium on March 11, 2025. This event is part of the Redgate Summit series, aiming to bring together database professionals who want to level up their skills to navigate the increasingly complex database landscape.

  ...

When constructing or investigating a SSIS package ...

Jon Vöge builds a list: Read on for eight different approaches to the problem and Jon’s thoughts on each approach.

Reading Time: 5 minutesIn this post I want to cover my initial tests of fabric-cicd. In order to provide some tips for those looking to work with...

Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) is a database clustering solution that enables multiple servers to operate as a single, unified system. Designed to deliver instance resiliency, scalability, and fault tolerance, Oracle RAC allows a single database to run across multiple interconnected nodes. With a myriad of features and architecture designs to meet a variety of needs, this architecture is a unique solution with optimal performance, which makes it an ideal choice for many mission-critical applications.

Some Thoughts On The Future Of Query Optimization ...

You’re looking at a wide table with 100-200 colu...

SQL Server performance issues often stem from easy fix bottle necks that can be fixed with the right tuning strategies. This short blog will focus on the DELETE statement.... The...

The transaction system is a core component of a re...

I had the pleasure of recording a new PG Down Unde...

On 21st of February 2025, Robert Haas committed pa...

This article describes an Accounts Receivable Agin...

Sebastiao Pereira offers a fourth-best solution: Regular expressions (REGEX) let you adaptively investigate, employ, and authenticate text data. This makes it easy to search for…

Koen Verbeek tries out a couple of fairly new functions: I need to construct JSON from data in our database, but I find the existing…

In the previous T-SQL 101 post, I mentioned that s...

I wanted to pass along this article I came across ...

THE VIDEO THE SYNOPSIS In this video, we will take...

One of the challenges with subqueries is they can ...

Louis Davidson was editing an article that uses SQ...

All About SQL Server Stored Procedures: Formatting Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a...

Have you ever wanted to know how to create a parqu...

As AI automates key aspects of software testing, Q...

The other day, my lovable coworker and frequent Si...

The Deskbuddy is a $100 desktop calendar display t...