You can get your money back on almost anything. Not one hour you’ve spent has ever come back.

Almost everything you buy can be returned, refunded, replaced, or earned again. Hours have no such policy. We guard the resource that can be recovered and spend the one that cannot, mostly because money has a number attached and time does not. An afternoon that disappeared never sends you a receipt, so it never feels like it cost anything.

Find out where your hours actually go this week, not where you think they go. The commute, the waiting, the scrolling you do not remember. Then take back one block of it, even an hour, and put it somewhere you would defend.