“Don’t serve time, make time serve you.”
(Willie Sutton)

I wrote Choose Your Own Adulthood for my daughter as she left for college. Some of you have read it, and I’m so excited about how many young adult lives it’s touching.

Well, my son is heading towards his senior year in high school, so it’s time to write him a book as well. I’m torn between two titles, but I know one idea that either one would emphasize:

Guard your time with your life.

We all think money is life’s most valuable resource, but time has it beat. And one of the easiest ways to lose time is by loaning it out to anyone and everyone.

—Think about when you get an alert on your phone: A corporation is now determining your attention schedule! (Turn off all alerts. Now. I promise you’ll feel better in just a couple of days.)
—Think about receiving a text: If you automatically react to it, another person is now owning your time! (Take your time replying; soon people will lessen their expectations of your immediacy)
—Think about that window appears when a new email arrives: It takes 20+minutes to return to your productivity flow! (tell Outlook to cool it—you can schedule your email retrievals).

Guard your time with your life, ‘cos that’s what it is. And it belongs to you and no one else.

Peace begins with pause,