Choose time over money on purpose

When trade-offs arise, weight time more heavily than the extra dollars.

Why it works

People who prioritize time over money tend to make choices — jobs, commutes, purchases — that protect their hours, and these choices accumulate into a more time-affluent life. The orientation itself shifts the default of countless small decisions toward wellbeing rather than income maximization.

How to do it

1. Notice trade-offs (a higher-paying but longer-hours role, a cheaper but slower option) explicitly.
2. Ask which choice protects your time, not just which maximizes money.
3. Default toward the time-protecting option unless the money genuinely changes your life.

Evidence

Studies report that individuals who value time over money tend to be happier, even controlling for how much money they have. Whillans, Weidman, and Dunn (2016) found this association held across six studies and remained after adjusting for participants’ available time and material resources. (observational)

Largely correlational, so causality runs both ways and the orientation may partly reflect already having enough money; it is least applicable when income is genuinely insufficient.

Sources

• Hershfield, Mogilner et al., research on valuing time versus money and wellbeing
• Whillans, A. V., Weidman, A. C., & Dunn, E. W. (2016). Valuing Time Over Money Is Associated With Greater Happiness. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(3), 213–222.

Common mistake

Treating more money as always better regardless of the time it costs, and only noticing the lost hours once they are already gone.