McDonald’s vs. Burger King

“Time is the stuff life is made of.”

– Benjamin Franklin

The Rule of 168

Readers of this article series know well that I believe the only true form of “wealth” is discretionary time, and that the true reason money has value is because it affords you the ability to spend your time doing the things that are most important to you.

I believe that the “Rule of 168” is the most important law that governs human Quality of Life.  This law mandates that:

• There are only 168 hours in every week. No matter your education level, your income, how smart or attractive you are, or how hard you work. This is all you get, with no exceptions.
• You have no idea how many weeks you are going to get over your lifetime. The only thing you can know for sure, is that every time a week passes by you have one less remaining.
• Your quality of life is a direct function of how you choose to spend that time.

These rules are really simple, and seem quite self-evident, but for some reason so many people take them far too lightly. We waste time on things that are not important, and commonly forget to place the proper value on our time. In the words of the Roman philosopher Seneca:

You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.

McDonald’s Vs. Burger King

Delegation is the “life hack” that allows you to maximize the use of your time and allows you to spend it doing the things that are most important to you. There are some areas in life in which you can employ the time, effort, and knowledge of others to get what you want, so you don’t have to do it yourself. I can pay someone else to shop for my groceries, cut my lawn, or prepare my taxes. But there are many things that I find much more important which I cannot delegate. I can’t pay someone else to exercise for me, or spend time with my family, have dinner with my wife, or advance my career, or take a vacation, or read a great book, or meditate, or play golf with my friends for me.

I recently heard an interesting fact that illuminates the power of harnessing other people’s knowledge and effort to achieve a desired outcome.

McDonald’s is the world’s largest and most successful fast-food franchise partially because they understand the paramount importance of selecting favorable locations for their stores. They spend millions of dollars each year on-site planning and employ scores of people whose job it is to research each potential location. McDonald’s has a detailed formula that takes into consideration many variants: the size of the area, growth patterns, tax rates, traffic count, neighboring commercial success rate, etc. Out of this compiled information, they pick locations and build brand-new red and yellow buildings with towering arches above.

Burger King also understands the importance of store location, and they also employ a site planning team. Their formula for deciding where to build a restaurant is much simpler: They wait for McDonald’s to announce a new location and then buy the lot across the street.

Which approach is better? Certainly, nobody will argue with the success of a company that has served “billions and billions” of cheeseburgers. But Burger King has great locations, too and spends much less money, time, and effort finding them.

Other People’s Knowledge

One of the beautiful benefits of living in a society with a vibrant service sector is that there are hundreds of opportunities to benefit from the time, effort, and knowledge of other people.

If you want to get in shape, you can go and spend months learning everything there is to know about exercise physiology – or you can just hire a personal trainer and do what she tells you to do.  If you want to have a beautiful lawn, you can go take an agronomy course, or you can hire a landscaper and do what he tells you to do.  If you want to stay out of trouble with the IRS, you can spend hours researching tax law and filing your own tax return, or you can hire a good CPA and follow her advice.

Your physical fitness, front yard, and tax return will be in the same shape either way (in fact, probably in better shape if you listen to the experts). But didn’t you have better things to do with your time anyway than spend hours learning exercise physiology, agronomy, or tax law?

A Valuable Message

We hope that you enjoyed our message in this month’s VALUABLES, and we love it when you share our articles.  So, feel free to post this on Facebook, Twitter, or any other form of social media. You might also feel free to email out to a friend or family member who might appreciate it.

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Freedom comes in four different varieties: Freedom of Money, Time, Relationships, and Purpose.