Life

1. Invest in “Life-Extending” Time

Investing time in caring for your health is an obvious one that will certainly yield you more time, literally—in days, months, if not years tacked on to your life. Yet we often take our health for granted until we experience a wake-up call. Proactively invest your time in your health by eating well, exercising regularly, getting plenty of sleep, and regularly seeing your doctors. Invest heartily in those non-physical markers of well-being as well: emotional, mental, and spiritual health—you will reap many hours of well-lived life from them. Learn the habits of the Blue Zone people, from the regions in the world where people live the longest. Some common lifestyle traits they share? Building in natural movement and activity, lowering stress, and being part of a faith-based community.

2. Invest in “Foundation-Building” Time

There’s a little saying that goes, “a stitch in time saves nine.” Create the time to make the right stitches, and you’ll be spared much time, hassle, and usually expense later. Stephen Covey refers to this concept in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. According to him, we spend our time primarily on four types of activity:

1. Urgent and important (crisis, deadlines, putting out fires)

2. Non-urgent and important (building relationships, identifying opportunities, prevention, planning)

3. Urgent and non-important (interruptions, phone calls, meetings)

4. Non-urgent and non-important (TV, email, time wasters)

Covey says that we spend most of our time in sections 1 and 4, but the real area of personal growth is in 2. If you’re spending more time putting out fires than building the right foundations, you’ll never get out ahead of your to-do list.

3. Invest in “Do-Nothing” Time

Americans could use a little dose of “La Dolce Far Niente,” or “the sweetness of doing nothing,” something the Italians and many other cultures have mastered. In America, we don’t feel our time is well spent...