The old saying “another day, another dollar” is often uttered with a shrug by people who’ve spent a good deal of their lives at dull, routine jobs. When I heard someone use that expression the other day, I started thinking, “What if days really were dollars?”  And if they were, how many “dollars” would a person get in a lifetime?

Well, the average life expectancy for Americans is currently 78.6 years, so if we got a dollar for every day, we’d each be allotted $28,689 during our lifetimes.

$28,689 for an entire lifetime. It’s not much, is it? A person living on an income as tight as $28,689 would learn very quickly how to prioritize those dollars.

And yet, in a lifetime in which we may get just 28,689 days to eat, sleep, build our businesses, enjoy our families and the multitudes of other things we want to accomplish, how many days do we spend on things that don’t matter, that we don’t enjoy, or that we think we’re expected to do?

Time is money. Each new day is currency to spend. We can’t bank it—we have to use it as it is delivered. Whether we spend it purposefully, fritter it away, or focus on the things that are inconsequential is up to each of us. But at a certain point, the most successful and the most happy people realize their 28,689 days are dwindling and they can’t keep putting off the things they really want to do, thinking they’ll get to them one day. They know that if they really want to do them, they better do them.

What is it that you need to stop thinking about doing, and actually do?