(Video link here). We’ve been thinking hard about this fragment of a Charlie Rose interview with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. When Rose asked Bill Gates what the biggest thing he’d learned from Warren Buffett is, Gates replied it isn’t about investing money; it’s about investing time.

Gates:  He is so careful about his time. He has days that there’s nothing on.

You control your time, and sitting and thinking may be a much higher priority than a normal CEO who, you know, there’s all this demand and you feel like you to go and see all these people.

It’s not a proxy of your seriousness that you filled every minute in your schedule.

Buffett: And people are going to want your time. It’s the only thing you can’t buy. I mean I can buy anything I want, basically, but I can’t buy time

Rose: And so to have time is the most precious thing you can have.

Buffett; I better be careful with it, okay, there’s no way I will be able to buy more time.

Today Clock

 

 

There’s no way anyone can buy more time but there are ways to have the feeling of having more time, of investing it wisely so as to feel spacious, as Buffett does by NOT cramming his schedule. We’ve been practicing that by seeing what we can take away, not do…to leave us…time.

The best way we know of having the feeling of spaciousness is to be present, in the moment as much as possible, taking pleasure in whatever is going on.

We know of no better way of splashing immediately in the moment than reading haiku:

    Buying leeks

and walking home

    under the bare trees.

 

How shall we invest our time?

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3 replies on “You Control Your Time (Warren Buffett + Bill Gates)

  1. You can’t buy more time. But by coming to yourself, being in your own center, you can make time very elastic:

    “He who binds to himself a joy
    Doth the winged life destroy;
    He who kisses the joy as it flies
    Lives in eternity’s sunrise.”

    (Who is that? Blake?)

  2. I know I’m a terrible person,..
    but I’ve never felt comfortable,
    …or been able to trust
    the immencily rich.

    I really would like to listen and learn
    from both gentlemen,..
    but….

    something in me,
    holds me back.
    ,…can’t explain it.

    David Saltman:
    a beautifull poem.
    Thank you.
    “Eternity”,…..Robert Blake

  3. I used to cook for the “immensely rich” and could tell you stories about grand disfunction…!!!! That said, I’ve been tracking Buffett for sometime, and he, like just a couple of the very wealthy people I cooked for, had great humility, realistic view about their wealth, and much to teach.

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