Tip of the Week #198: How much is your time worth?

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I recently stumbled across an astonishing quote by Derek Sivers, an author I know nothing about.  Or, didn’t know anything about until yesterday.   Here’s the quote:

“I hate to waste a single hour.  I feel the precious value of time, most of the time.  I imagine my time as worth $500 an hour, and ask myself what’s worth $500.  Watching a TV show?  Absolutely not.  (“Game of Thrones” at 63 hours so far = $31,500 to watch.)  Social media?  Absolutely not.   Focused on learning or creating?  Yep.  Being with my kid?  Always.”

The original quote is here: https://sive.rs/about

I like the idea of placing a monetary value on time.  I have done this for years.  I just didn’t use the number $500.   That’s probably a better approach.  $500 an hour makes you really consider how you are using your time.   

It adds up.  If you focus on sports and politics, years from now you are going to be able to talk about sports and politics.  

But, what if you dedicated that time to learning a new skill?   That adds up, too.   Years from now (perhaps sooner) you may be able to quit that job you are tired of and make a living with the new skill you learned.  

It works.  That’s what I did.  If I can do it with Latin, my guess is, you could do it with your new skill.   


What do I recommend?

“To learn Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, or German, which books do I order?”  This is the most common question I receive.  To find my answers, just go to my site, www.dwanethomas.com.  

Find the resources tab, and find the language you are looking for in the dropdown menu.  

For example, if you are looking for the books I recommend for learning Latin, click on the Latin tab: https://dwanethomas.com/resources-latin/.  Same for Greek.  Same for Spanish.  And, so on.  

Down at the bottom, below the languages, you will see three more tabs, Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise.  

These are the three categories I have used for years to organize my goals.  They are based on Benjamin Franklin’s maxim: “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”  In these tabs, I include books and links that help me achieve these goals.  You may find them useful as well.

I’ll make it easy for you.  Here they all are:


And now… the same thing I say every week.

Subscribers sometimes use my weekly emails as reminders to unsubscribe from my site.

Just keep in mind… I offer something no one else in academia (as far as I know) offers.  Stick with me for 3 uninterrupted years and you will have a lifetime subscription.

I now know this is a dumb business decision on my part, but I have heard from many of you that it is a huge help, so, for now, the offer stands.

Of course, if you are just starting out in Latin, you may be happier with Visual Latin.    

Visual Latin is a full-blown Latin course.  It is rigorous, just not as rigorous as the classes on my site.  The classes on my site are more “next level” classes, really.

By the way, if you are into etymology (the history of words), and if you would like to see me make a fool of myself, you might enjoy Word Up.  

Five years ago, or so, we launched this series just to see if it would work.  It did.  And, after years of listening to many of you beg for more, I finally gave in and agreed to make a fool of myself once again.  So now, Volumes 2 and 3 of Word Up are available.

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I hope you had a very happy Saturday!
Dwane

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