The First Habit of Becoming Rich – Managing Time, Not Money

The real difference between those who earn money and those who build wealth lies in how they use their time. This article explores the first key habit of turning time into an asset, not an expense.

Table of Contents

1. Why do people get different results with the same 24 hours?
2. The wealthy treat time as money
3. How to increase “investment time” instead of “consumption time”
4. Tools that create time leverage
5. Conclusion: The path to wealth begins with mastering your time

1. Why do people get different results with the same 24 hours?

Everyone has 24 hours in a day. Yet some people build assets, while others end up only exhausted. The reason lies in how they allocate their time.
Harvard economist Gary Becker explained human behavior through the concept of “time allocation.” He argued that time is scarcer than money, and the core of wealth-building lies in how efficiently we use it.
Most employees spend time earning money. The rich spend time building structures that make money for them—systems, investments, and scalable value.

Source: Gary Becker, A Treatise on the Family, Harvard University Press, 1991.

2. The wealthy treat time as money

The rich calculate their actions in terms of hourly value. If one hour of your time is worth $40, wasting that hour means losing $40.
Bill Gates has said in interviews, “Time is the one thing you can’t buy.” It’s not a metaphor—it’s a rule he lives by. The wealthy design their days around high-value projects, cutting out unnecessary meetings and distractions.
Most people, however, treat time as a “leftover resource” and spend it on short-term pleasure or low-value activities. Once you start assigning a price tag to your hours, your priorities change dramatically.

Source: Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, Viking Press, 1995.

3. How to increase “investment time” instead of “consumption time”

Those who become rich dedicate part of their day to what we can call “investment time”—time that produces future income. Reading, studying, networking, automating workflows, or learning new skills all fall under this category.
Warren Buffett famously spends about 80% of his day reading. “Knowledge compounds,” he says, describing how information builds wealth over time.
This habit forms the foundation of his investment success. In contrast, consumption time—like endlessly scrolling through social media—offers short-term satisfaction but no long-term return. Reading a single chapter of an investment book instead of watching videos for an hour might not seem significant today, but over a decade, it creates a measurable gap in wealth.

Source: CNBC Interview, Warren Buffett: The more you learn, the more you earn, 2017.

4. Tools that create time leverage

Time is equal for everyone, but efficiency is not. The wealthy use leverage to multiply the value of their hours. Here are three core methods:

1) Automation

They use tools like AI, Zapier, or Notion to automate repetitive tasks such as emails, payments, or data entry. Automation buys back time.

2) Outsourcing

Tasks with a lower hourly value—like bookkeeping, design, or translation—are delegated to others. This is not laziness; it’s capital efficiency.

3) Deep Work

In Deep Work, Cal Newport writes that “a deep focus session produces more value than an entire day of shallow work.” Wealthy individuals set aside two to three uninterrupted hours a day for deep concentration, where creative and strategic thinking happens.
The leverage of time doesn’t come from technology alone, but from making intentional choices—deciding what not to do.

Source: Cal Newport, Deep Work, Grand Central Publishing, 2016.

5. Conclusion: The path to wealth begins with mastering your time

The wealthy don’t just manage their time—they own it.
They view their daily schedule as a flow of capital and treat their actions as investments. Forbes summarized this mindset perfectly: “Millionaires don’t spend time; they allocate it.”
The first habit of becoming rich is to invest time, not consume it.
How you use just one hour a day determines your financial structure ten years from now.

Source: Forbes, Habits of Millionaires: How They Manage Their Time, 2022.

Read this post in: 한국어 | English | Español | 日本語 | Français | Deutsch | Bahasa Indonesia