With money, you can generally use it to consume -- for present enjoyment and immediate benefit -- or to invest -- which will let you have more resources later, and if wisely invested, have higher consumption in the future (if that's your goal).

Time can be looked at the same way. You can use your time to consume, which would be some mix of leisure and enjoyment, or invest your time into gathering more resources, training up your skills, and producing.

But two points make time stand strongly apart from money. The first is, most people are neither really consuming their time, nor investing it. It's just passing, never to return. Time spent really fully engaged, in good company, with great music playing, with some mix of triumphant feelings or tranquility or peace or joy -- this is time well spent.

And likewise, pioneering and enterprising and building, even when it hurts, is time well spent.

But tally up the hours a person normally spends each week… how many of those hours are truly invested, or truly consumed well?

Probably not so many. It's not a tragedy for a person to not be "on"… but it's definitely a tragedy if someone is neither "on" nor "off" very often -- instead stuck in a terrible middle, not enjoyable and recharging, not engaged and producing.

So, that's got to be priority #1 for time -- be "on", or be "off", but for damn sure don't be stuck in between.

Then, there's another thing that sets time apart from money, which is that you can get incredible amounts of enjoyment without sacrifice out of investing your time well; in effect, consuming simultaneously with investing. It's possible with money too, but harder -- with the right choice of activities, it's very possible to get the benefits of production/investment simultaneous with engagement, peace of mind, and joy. It takes some focus and effort to get there, getting there can be painful, but it's so so so so worth it.