Alec Torelli: How Much is Your Time Worth?

(Photo: Assopoker.com)

A lec Torelli's video on time management focuses on attempting to put a dollar amount on your time and to outsource the tasks and things that are not important to you in order to free up time to do things that are meaningful and that make you happy.

Torelli obviously thinks and contemplates life on a high level with the end goal of creating or achieving the most happiness with the limited amount of time available in every day. There are only 24 hours in each and we can do only so much, so why not do the things that matter to us and are the most important?

Ship It

Watching the video reminded me of something I had read previously about the “Ship it Holla Ballas.” You know, the young, brash online poker pros such as Phil Galfond, Andrew Robl, Tom Dwan, and David Benefield, who were making so much money in the early days of online poker that it seemed almost silly to spend their time doing anything else.

If my memory serves me correctly, I believe it was Robl who put a dollar amount on his time and tended to feel guilty when he spent too much of his day partying and living it up. He figured he was losing money by not being seated at his computer playing poker.

However, there was no way to outsource his partying and trysts with the opposite sex - not that he would want to. But I suppose he may have struggled with prioritizing his time properly since those pangs of guilt were felt when he wasn't playing poker and making gobs of money.

A Balanced Life

But getting back to Alec's video, he preaches the need to find a balance between your work and personal life, and giving "some sort of hierarchy" to all the different things that you want to do. A focus should be placed on the most important things, which are not always the most productive, Torelli said.

For instance, using the example of Robl, of course a 19-year-old living in Las Vegas will be interested in having fun with friends and the ladies. Not the most productive use of one's time financially, of course, but certainly necessary in living and enjoying life.

The crux of Alec's video is basically to not let trivial and unimportant matters suck away your energy and to spend your time on things that have the most meaning, either financial or otherwise. Placing a value on your time's worth helps in establishing the hierarchy that he mentions, creating the ability to eliminate or outsource those items on the lower end of the spectrum.