Maximise Return on Investment.
Human life is unfortunately too short, even in Western societies with good healthcare, sanitation and access to opportunities, to consider anything other than maximising the time we have present. Where we cannot see the future, what remains are the decisions we make and how we make them. I maximise return on investment by making decisions based on several principles.
Firstly, knowing my values. These are a compass guiding my life, providing the direction of the decision and ensuring my decisions form a coherent and cohesive unit of mental processes that culminate in positive outcomes. My values include generosity towards others, adventure, social influence, self-development, and integrity. Decisions are aligned to these values and so hopefully would maximise return on investment by focused attention. This is important because the concept of return and investment is fluid; return could include financial returns, status, friendships, relationships, or social good, whilst investment could be of time, money, relationships, and reputation.
Secondly, knowing my strengths. These help guide me towards decisions that leverage my inbuilt strengths. Leveraging natural strengths helps maximise return on investment since the processes will be much easier to achieve and continue working on. My strengths include written and verbal communication, logic and analysis, introspection, and information synthesis. Choosing career paths, types of financial investments to make, books to read, interests to pursue - these are areas by which choosing my strengths will increase return on investment of time and money. Don't know your strengths? Personality tests such as the MBTI, career direction tests such as the RIASEC, and looking back at what you naturally excelled at provides you with a good picture.
Thirdly, knowing my weaknesses. These help guide me towards making decisions that outsource my weaknesses or find ways to compensate for them, in order to focus energy on strengths. This maximises time available for pursuing the paths that have high return. My weaknesses include attention to finicky details, following up, scheduling and organising. Addressing weaknesses through means such as using electronic personal assistants and organisers, and delegating and outsourcing to other people or applications, allows maximal return on investment. Know your weaknesses by considering times when you've failed a project or didn't do as well as you could, and understanding why they occurred.
Finally, being principled in carrying out decisions. Procrastination is a weakness for many but deserves a whole point of its own; methods include changing the physical setting of where you carry out said decisions (such as an office instead of on the bedroom desk), using an accountability partner (a close friend, partner, or other confidant), and ensuring that the decisions you are making actually align with your true values (as procrastination may be resistance of poor decisions in disguise) are ways to be principled and disciplined in carrying out your goals and dreams.
Life is about finding purpose and meaning in it, through whatever means you can find. Maximising what you can achieve with the time you have, the main investment, is critically important to finding that purpose. Living life without goals or loose ideas is a challenging concept for me and one that I believe only a small minority of people would benefit from; the vast majority of us can achieve our potentials through discipline and focus. The ultimate reward and return is a life fully lived, with no regrets and a satisfaction towards family, friends and community.
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