How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovators Dilemma, passed away last week and many people were sharing talks and articles by him. This article was by far the most recommended, and I had not read it. I strongly encourage reading it, maybe multiple times.

I have a bunch of "businesses" that compete for these resources: I’m trying to have a rewarding relationship with my wife, raise great kids, contribute to my community, succeed in my career, contribute to my church, and so on. And I have exactly the same problem that a corporation does. I have a limited amount of time and energy and talent. How much do I devote to each of these pursuits?

Allocation choices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended. Sometimes that’s good: Opportunities that you never planned for emerge. But if you misinvest your resources, the outcome can be bad. As I think about my former classmates who inadvertently invested for lives of hollow unhappiness, I can’t help believing that their troubles relate right back to a short-term perspective.

That resource of time, and where you put it, is so critical. 🙏