ROI
September 30th, 2024
Your time is the only resource you can't get more of. You can make more money. You can meet new people. You can learn new skills. But you can't manufacture more hours. Once a day is gone, it's gone forever.
This means you need to be ruthless about where your time and energy go. Not everything deserves your attention. Most things, in fact, are low-return activities that feel productive but don't actually move your life forward. The secret to getting ahead isn't doing more, but doing the right things. The things with the highest return on investment.
The truth is that a few decisions and habits will end up determining 80% of your life outcomes. If you get those right, everything else becomes a lot easier. But ignore them, and you'll spend decades working hard on things that don't matter.
So let's talk about the highest ROI investments you can make - investments that are not aspirational, but practical and in fact very achievable. I believe that if you can focus on these, you'll compound returns over time that will make your life unrecognisable in 5, 10, 20 years.
The highest ROI decisions:
| Investment | ROI | Difficulty | Time to Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep | 9.8/10 | 3.0/10 | Immediate |
| Lifting weights | 9.5/10 | 5.0/10 | 2-3 months |
| Reading daily | 9.3/10 | 2.0/10 | 6-12 months |
| Choosing your partner carefully | 10/10 | 8.5/10 | Years |
| Building a skill that earns money | 9.7/10 | 7.5/10 | 1-2 years |
| Quitting bad habits (smoking, excessive drinking, junk food) | 9.4/10 | 8.0/10 | 3-6 months |
| Living below your means | 9.0/10 | 6.0/10 | Immediate |
| Surrounding yourself with ambitious people | 8.9/10 | 7.0/10 | 6-12 months |
| Investing early (compound interest) | 9.6/10 | 3.5/10 | 10+ years |
| Learning to communicate clearly | 8.7/10 | 6.5/10 | 1-2 years |
| Walking 10,000 steps daily | 8.5/10 | 2.5/10 | 2-4 weeks |
| Learning a high-income skill (sales, coding, etc.) | 9.2/10 | 8.0/10 | 6-18 months |
| Meal prepping / cooking at home | 8.3/10 | 4.0/10 | 1-2 months |
| Building a personal brand online | 8.8/10 | 7.0/10 | 1-3 years |
| Meditation / mindfulness practice | 8.4/10 | 5.5/10 | 2-3 months |
| Cutting out processed sugar | 8.6/10 | 7.5/10 | 2-4 weeks |
Why these matter:
Sleep (9.8/10): This is the foundation everything else is built on. If you're not sleeping 7-8 hours consistently, nothing else works properly. Your brain doesn't consolidate memories. Your hormones go haywire. Your willpower tanks. Your immune system weakens. You get fat easier. You age faster. Bad sleep compounds into worse health, worse decisions, and a worse life. Good sleep is free. It just requires going to bed on time. There's no excuse to neglect this.
Lifting weights (9.5/10): Strength training is the closest thing to a magic pill you'll find. It builds muscle, which raises your metabolism, which makes staying lean easier. It increases bone density, which prevents injuries as you age. It boosts testosterone naturally (for both men and women), which improves mood, energy, and confidence. It's also one of the few activities that makes you better at everything else. You'll have more energy for work, better posture, fewer aches, and you'll look better. Three hours a week for the rest of your life. Worth it.
Reading daily (9.3/10): Reading compresses decades of experience into hours. Someone spent 20 years figuring something out, and you can learn it in an afternoon. The knowledge gap between people who read and people who don't is staggering. Readers understand more, think better, make smarter decisions, and see opportunities others miss. 30 minutes a day. One book a month. Twelve books a year. In ten years, that's 120 books. You'll know more than 99% of people in any domain you care about.
Choosing your partner carefully (10/10): This is the single most important decision you'll make. Your partner will either multiply your potential or divide it. A bad relationship drains your energy, clouds your judgment, and holds you back. A good one makes everything easier. You'll be happier, healthier, more productive, and more fulfilled. Most people don't take this seriously enough. They settle because they're lonely or because "it's time." Don't. Wait. Be picky. This decision affects everything: your stress levels, your finances, your health, your kids (if you have them), your career, your social life. Get it right. It's worth the wait.
Building a skill that earns money (9.7/10): A valuable skill gives you leverage. Once you're good at something people will pay for, you have options. You're not stuck in a job you hate because you need the paycheck. You can negotiate. You can freelance. You can start a business. You can work remotely. The best part: skills compound. The better you get, the more you earn per hour. And unlike a degree or a job title, no one can take your skill away. Invest 1-2 years becoming genuinely good at something valuable (coding, writing, design, sales, marketing, etc.), and you'll unlock decades of higher earnings and more freedom.
Quitting bad habits (9.4/10): Bad habits are silent killers. They don't ruin your life overnight. They erode it slowly. Smoking takes years off your life and thousands from your wallet. Drinking too much destroys your liver, your brain, and your relationships. Eating junk food makes you fat, tired, and sick. The crazy part: most people know this. They just don't quit because it's hard. But here's the thing: it only has to be hard once. Quit now, deal with the discomfort for a few months, and you'll never have to deal with it again. The ROI is massive because you're not just gaining benefits. You're removing something actively harming you.
Living below your means (9.0/10): This one's simple but most people get it wrong. If you spend everything you earn, you're stuck. You can't take risks. You can't invest. You can't leave a bad job. You're trapped by your lifestyle. Living below your means gives you freedom. You can save. You can invest. You can weather emergencies without panic. You can take time off to learn a new skill. You can start a business. Financial margin is life margin. It doesn't mean being cheap. It means being intentional. Buy the things that matter. Skip the things that don't.
Surrounding yourself with ambitious people (8.9/10): You become the average of the people you spend the most time with. If your friends are lazy, you'll become lazy. If they're complainers, you'll complain. If they're drinkers, you'll drink. If they're broke, you'll stay broke. This isn't judgment. It's psychology. Humans are social animals. We mirror the people around us. So be strategic. Find people who are smarter, more driven, more successful than you. Spend time with them. You'll naturally level up just by proximity. Your standards will rise. Your habits will improve. Your results will follow.
Investing early (9.6/10): Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. If you invest £500 a month starting at 25, you'll have over £1 million by 65 (assuming 8% annual returns). If you wait until 35 to start, you'll have less than half that. The earlier you start, the less you have to contribute because time does the heavy lifting. Most people don't invest because they think they need a lot of money to start. You don't. Start with whatever you have. £50 a month. £100 a month. Just start. The habit matters more than the amount early on.
Learning to communicate clearly (8.7/10): Almost everything valuable requires convincing other people. Getting a job. Closing a sale. Negotiating a raise. Building a relationship. Leading a team. If you can't communicate, you're stuck. But if you can write clearly and speak persuasively, doors open everywhere. You'll get hired faster. You'll earn more. You'll build better relationships. You'll influence outcomes. This skill touches everything. And it's learnable. Read good writing. Write every day. Practice speaking. Join a debate club. Do a presentation. It's uncomfortable at first, but it pays dividends forever.
The lowest ROI traps:
| Activity | ROI | Why it's a trap | How to avoid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social media scrolling | 0.5/10 | Steals hours daily, gives nothing back, increases anxiety and comparison | Delete apps from phone, use browser only, set 30-min daily limit, turn off all notifications |
| Buying luxury items for status | 1.0/10 | Depletes savings, temporary validation, keeps you poor | Wait 30 days before any non-essential purchase, ask "Will this matter in 5 years?" |
| Chasing "passive income" schemes | 1.5/10 | Wastes time and money on low-probability shortcuts instead of building real skills | Focus on active income first. Build a skill that earns £50-100/hour before thinking passive |
| Watching TV/Netflix for hours | 2.0/10 | Pure time sink, no growth, compounds into years of wasted potential | Cancel subscriptions, only watch 1 episode max per day, replace with reading or creating |
| Staying in a job you hate for "security" | 2.5/10 | Kills your potential, drains energy, prevents growth, wastes your best years | Build skills on the side for 6-12 months, save 6 months expenses, then make the jump |
| Drinking alcohol regularly | 1.2/10 | Ruins sleep quality, destroys productivity next day, expensive, damages long-term health | Track how much you spend monthly, do 30-day break to reset tolerance, limit to special occasions only |
| Playing video games excessively | 1.8/10 | Fake sense of achievement, time disappears fast, prevents real skill building | Set 1-hour daily limit, only after completing 3 productive tasks, uninstall addictive ones |
| Taking on consumer debt | 0.8/10 | High interest compounds against you, creates financial stress, limits future options | Cut up credit cards except 1 for emergencies, use debit only, save first then buy |
| Complaining and gossiping | 0.3/10 | Rewires brain for negativity, attracts wrong people, solves nothing, wastes energy | Catch yourself doing it, replace with solutions or silence, cut out negative friends |
| Eating out / ordering takeaway constantly | 2.2/10 | Expensive, unhealthy ingredients, prevents learning to cook, adds up to thousands yearly | Meal prep Sundays, learn 5 simple recipes, allow 1-2 meals out weekly maximum |
| Perfectionism / analysis paralysis | 1.3/10 | Prevents starting, keeps you stuck, no progress made, opportunity cost massive | Set 2-hour research limit, then act. Done is better than perfect. Ship messy version 1 |
| Hanging out with unmotivated people | 1.6/10 | Their habits rub off on you, drags your standards down, normalises mediocrity | Slowly distance yourself, join communities of ambitious people, prioritise growth-minded friends |
How to think about ROI:
When you're deciding where to invest your time, ask yourself: "Will this matter in five years?" If the answer is no, it's probably low ROI. Scrolling Twitter won't matter. Buying a fancy watch won't matter. Binge-watching a show won't matter. But lifting weights will. Reading will. Learning a skill will. Building relationships will.
High ROI activities share a few characteristics. They compound. They improve multiple areas of your life at once. They're hard to start but easy to maintain once they become habits. And they give you leverage. A skill, a relationship, a habit. These things multiply your effectiveness forever.
Low ROI activities do the opposite. They feel good in the moment but leave nothing behind. They're easy to start but hard to stop. And they steal time without giving anything back.
The trap most people fall into is optimising for the wrong things. They spend hours trying to save £10 on a purchase but won't invest a weekend learning a skill that could earn them an extra £10,000 a year. They'll scroll for three hours but won't read for 30 minutes. They'll watch motivational videos but won't do the actual work.
Your life is the sum of what you pay attention to. If you spend your time on high ROI activities, you'll compound into success. If you spend it on low ROI distractions, you'll compound into mediocrity. It's not complicated. It's just hard because the high ROI stuff requires delayed gratification. You have to do the work now and trust that it'll pay off later.
But here's the good news: once you shift your focus, the results become obvious fast. Sleep better for a week and you'll feel sharper. Lift for a month and you'll look different. Read for six months and you'll think differently. The feedback loop reinforces itself. You see progress, so you keep going. And over time, those small investments turn into massive returns.
So stop wasting time on things that don't matter. You only get one life. Invest it wisely.