Show Notes
“Time is money.” It’s a phrase we take for granted in the 21st century. Every hour of the day is a potentially monetizable unit. It’s another client you can serve, another social media post you can create, another trip you can drive, invoice you can send, or errand you can run.
Ben Franklin penned the phrase “time is money” back in the 18th century. It’s a sort of semiotic turning point from the piety of vocation—the heart of the Protestant work ethic—to the pragmatic striving of industrialized capitalism.
Both time and money seem predetermined and standardized. A dollar is a dollar. An hour is an hour. But they’re modern inventions. And their standardization defies our lived experience. A dollar can have considerably different value depending on your circumstances or the transaction you want to make. An hour can seem like an interminably long time when you’re in labor or feel like an instant when you’re engaged in an activity you love.
Our livelihoods revolve around time and money. The way we navigate the world and even relate to others is influenced by our access to time and money. So how we think about time, money, and how they intersect has an immense influence on our lives.
Welcome to Time & Money—a special presentation of What Works. I’m your host, Tara McMullin. In this 8-part limited series, I take on critical questions about our relationship to time and money. I talk with experts, dive into the history of work, consult philosophy, and explore social and political theory.
It’s a multidisciplinary journey designed to help you question your assumptions about resources we often take for granted.
All 8 episodes are available now with links to each episode in essay form in the show notes.
If Time & Money helps you think about, well, time & money in new ways, share the series with a friend. And check out What Works on your favorite podcast player for more insights into navigating the 21st-century economy with your humanity intact.
★ Support this podcast ★
What is Time & Money?
Ben Franklin penned the phrase "time is money" back in the 18th century. Three hundred years later, we take it for granted. But the idea that time is money has had a massive impact on the way we work and earn our livelihoods today. Time & Money is an 8-part limited series designed to help you question your assumptions about time, money, and their intersection. What is money? How much is our time work? How do we measure quality time? And what metrics really matter when it comes to how we understand our time and our money? Time & Money is a special presentation of What Works, hosted by Tara McMullin, and YellowHouse.Media. You'll hear from experts like Paco de Leon, founder of Hell Yeah Bookkeeping, money coach Keina Newell, business operations specialist Elisabeth Jackson, and American in Paris Anne Ditmeyer. We'll dive into the history of work, consult philosophy, explore social and political theory, and ask: is time really money?