How To Lose Time and Money (And What Not To Do)
Ever dream of selling your startup, swimming through a Scrooge‑McDuck pool of cash and then… promptly blowing it all on champagne and speedboats? Me neither. Turns out that’s not even how fortunes disappear. In his 2010 essay “How to Lose Time and Money”, YC co‑founder Paul Graham admits that he only started studying how to stay rich after he became rich, and what he learned is almost insultingly simple: most wealth evaporates not through extravagant shopping sprees but through bad investments. You’re not buying a yacht, you’re “diversifying”—only, your portfolio ends up looking like a Las Vegas blackjack table.
Here’s where the essay feels like it was ghost‑written by your time‑tracking app. Graham notes that the same sneaky traps exist for your hours. The biggest way to waste a day isn’t binge‑watching The Bear; it’s performing “fake work” that feels productive—answering endless emails, fiddling with spreadsheets and attending meetings about meetings. These tasks mimic real effort so well that your internal guilt alarms stay snoozed. You’d feel gross spending a day watching TV, but you might end a day of inbox‑triaging with nothing tangible accomplished.
The fix? Develop new alarms. Question whether that “investment opportunity” or that seventh Zoom call is really adding value, or just pretending to. Recognise that true productivity often looks less like busyness and more like going deep on a problem, building something, or even reading something that sparks an idea. Just as you’d research before buying into a risky stock, vet your to‑do list to avoid tasks that only look virtuous.
So next time you’re tempted by a shiny SaaS investment or an afternoon of Slack pings, remember: the real villain isn’t decadence—it’s disguised diligence. In the words of PG, the “most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work”. Your wallet and your calendar will thank you.