What’s that thing you can’t buy? Warren Buffett, way back in 2017, revealed his greatest advice to Bill Gates.
Bill Gates is the perfect example of an entrepreneur who knows how to take his time, yet it wasn’t always like this. Even if today he reveals his passion for reading, going for walks, detaching from social media to have the only thing that cannot be bought, i.e. time, as Bill Gates always had a packed schedule in the past.
Like many other entrepreneurs and freelancers, he believed time not invested in work risks being time wasted. But is it really so? In a 2017 interview, Gates says he first came into contact with the idea of having to take back one’s free time. However, the stimulus came thanks to advice from Warren Buffett, one of history’s most successful investors.
And if Warren Buffet could find time for himself, he might as well do the same. This reasoning, very common today among young people, was more difficult for previous generations to understand. Yet the only way to work intelligently is to work rested and with energy. Even Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has confessed that he has increased his hours of sleep because only in this way he can truly be productive.
You’re no longer professional if you don’t have time for yourself: Warren Buffet’s advice
In a 2017 interview Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, said he had confronted Warren Buffett about his calendar. Gates’ was a rental of appointments and ended almost every day at 02:00 in the night. Time itself was scarce, if at all. In his interview, Gates recalls how Warren Buffet showed him his calendar with completely free days marked.
On that occasion, he became aware of Buffett’s words: check your time. “It’s not an indicator of your seriousness if it fills every minute of your schedule,” he told Gates. In fact, there is one thing that cannot be earned or bought and that is time. While money is earned, invested, and wasted, time can only be lost.
What is the Warren Buffett method?
Buffett has no financial problems and can buy anything he wants, but can’t buy time. For this reason, the advice he gave to Bill Gates, another Scrooge without financial difficulties, was to "work intelligently". In other words: work the right amount, no more.
The Buffett method starts from a simple idea, but proven by science: when you work more than 50 hours a week, your productivity drops dramatically. This was revealed by a 2014 Stanford University study. According to research, people who work up to 70 hours a week carry out the same amount of work (productivity) as those who work 55 hours.
After 50 hours per week therefore productivity drops and also performance. It is no coincidence that there has been discussion for some time about applying a short working week. The result seems to be more free time for employees, higher productivity, and revenues for companies.
Original article published on Money.it Italy 2023-07-10 18:47:55. Original title: Bill Gates svela il più grande consiglio di Warren Buffett per avere l’unica cosa che non si può acquistare
