Whew! I’ve been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest lately, which leads into my entry for the day.

A hot topic of personal finance is how to spend money. While that’s certainly important, what has really been hitting home with me lately—as someone who seemingly never has enough hours in the day—is that how we spend our time is at least as important, if not more. It’s almost as if…time is money! (HolI think I’m on to something.)

As I’ve written about before, I’m constantly looking for small edges that add up over time. Those are certainly important, but I think it’s also worth “swinging for the fence” when appropriate. Sure, most people will fund a comfortable retirement by religiously stocking money away into their retirement accounts, but it’s possible to keep doing that while at the same time looking for that opportunity that’s going to make you rich.

Lately I’ve been exploring the idea of making money by developing websites. It really seems like an ideal profession—work when and where you want, passive income streams, being self-employed, etc. Of course, there’s a pretty steep learning curve. I consider myself pretty tech-savvy, but I’ve never tried to monetize websites before. I’ve been taking a crack at it lately and, well, there’s a lot of information to be learned. Thus, a lot of time; Time that could be spent doing other potentially lucrative things I’m interested in.

So do I do it? Honestly, right now I haven’t the faintest idea. How do I spend my money? Piece of cake. How do I spend my time? Not so easy.

I’ve also been putting in a lot of time at the office. My time spent there is going to have the most immediate payoff, but is it the best use of my time in the long run? Usually, one could return to one of the fundamental tenets of finance—the time value of money—to evaluate potential projects, but how does one quantify extra time spent at the office? I get paid a salary, so while I’m convinced that extra time spent at work will advance my career, it’s not as easy to figure the benefit as if I earned an hourly wage. Further, how does one make projections on earnings from a project with a description as nebulous as “website development”?

I guess this is the part where I wrap things up with some sage advice and you walk away with concrete advice on how to better spend your time, but I’m afraid I don’t have the answers on this one. I’m not even sure there is an answer, actually. At least not in a definitive, “the answer is x” sense. Much as I’d wish it were so, not every dilemma can be analyzed on a spreadsheet, I suppose. It’s a very complex issue and one that I expect I’ll revisit again once I’ve had a chance to think about it some more. Arrghh…more time commitments!

Further reading: Morris Day and the Time.