The Behavioural Economics Of How We Spend Our Time | Koen Smets | Modern Wisdom 127

Everyone gets the same 24 hours regardless of wealth, and once a minute is gone it cannot be banked or reused—so decisions about how to spend it are often more consequential than small financial choices we obsess over.

Whether it’s driving 20 minutes to save a little on fuel or sitting in traffic daily, we rarely calculate what else we could be doing with that time; consciously asking “what am I giving up by doing this?” can change decisions quickly.

Just as people create virtual pots for money, you can earmark blocks of time for deep work, rest, or family and treat those blocks as non-fungible instead of letting any random task expand to fill them.

Decisions like over-negotiating with suppliers or calling unnecessary meetings can consume colleagues’ time without any clear ‘price tag’; building awareness of these knock-on effects can improve collaboration and productivity.

The Estonian speeding experiment—offering drivers a choice between a €400 fine or waiting an hour—ties the punishment to the immediate time-cost of speeding, likely making behavior change more durable than delayed monetary fines.