The Flow of Time and Money: How to Create a Full and Prosperous Life [Paperback]

Lloyd Watts (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 2008

In "The Flow of Time and Money", Dr. Lloyd Watts uses easy-to-understand diagrams to show how time and money flow, and how to make them work for you. You will discover: - How to create Life Assets and Material Assets that increase your productivity and produce Passive Income - How to avoid the "Borrow and Spend" and "Save and Spend" financial traps - The stages leading to financial independence, and what actions to take, depending on where you are on the path - How to stay focused on long-term goals, even in the presence of daily distractions - How to achieve the freedom and wealth you need to make your highest contribution to the world.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lloyd Watts was born in London, England, on October 2, 1961. He earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1992 at the California Institute of Technology, studying with Silicon Valley pioneer Carver Mead in the area of Computational Neuroscience. In 2000, he founded Audience, Inc., a venture-capital funded startup that builds advanced noise reduction chips for cell-phones based on the operation of the human auditory pathway. Dr. Watts is the author of 5 patents and many technical papers. He is an accomplished photographer, painter, musician, and hang glider pilot, and proud father of two lovely daughters. He lives in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Megawatt Media Corporation; Original edition (August 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0980153719
• ISBN-13: 978-0980153712
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #604,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not exactly revolutionary, but it's definitely an ideal book for those seeking lasting commitments to wealth building!, February 19, 2009

By 

Lee Say Keng "KNOWLEDGE ADVENTURER/TECHNOLOGY... (Ho Chi Minh City/Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Flow of Time and Money: How to Create a Full and Prosperous Life (Paperback)

'THE FLOW OF TIME & MONEY',

by Lloyd Watts

At first glance & based on an initial cursory read, the author of this book seems to take the opportunity to ride on some of 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' Robert Kiyosaki's cash flow ideas.

However, following a deeper level of reading, I find that the author has given readers a new spin, drawing on his 32 years' of self- study & personal experiments, by introducing a refreshing visual approach, with simple but well-illustrated flow diagrams to capture his many wonderful thoughts about the systems perspectives of life, money & time.

Although the stuff in the book is not exactly revolutionary, I certainly like his intertwining concept of the flow of time & the flow of money, & in particular, the investments in life assets (education, relationships, health & organisation) to sustain material assets.

His concept of 'triggered expenses' (the image of a leaky bucket really jolts the mind) that most people don't realise is really a wake-up call. I honestly didn't think of that.

Undoubtedly, how we spend our time & our money determine our destiny. The counter-point to this harsh reality is that the principles of time & money are still not taught in schools, & sad to say, most of us, including yours truly, have entered adulthood without a clear understanding of how to live to our full potential.

As a matter of fact, my own understanding on how to take control of my income, expenses, & wealth came about only when I was in my early forties.

I was fortunate in a way that I had bumped into a book by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin, entitled 'Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence'.

In my personal view, the author of 'The Flow of Time & Money' has very beautifully brought to life, through his lucid explanation of why we struggle financially, why we fall for hidden debt traps, & how we can lay out the pathway to financial independence, planet Earth's friendly genius R Buckminster Fuller's original concept of wealth building in terms of time, not in terms of money - how many days into the future you can live on what you have. The author calls it aptly, survival time.

My personal favourite chapters happen to be the last few, at the end of the book: 'Realising Your Dreams' ("taking the long term perspective, with sustained yet intermittent effort, building empowering habits, staying focused") & 'Contributing to the World' ("how do you want to be remembered?").

I reckon, in a nut shell, these are the vital aspects that truly make our mastery of time & money more spiritually engaging as well as more personally meaningful.

In the end analysis, all I can say about this book is that it's definitely an ideal book for those seeking lasting commitments to achieving wealth & personal fulfillment.

Best of all, with 100-odd pages, it's breezy to read because of the many easy-to-understand graphic illustrations.

[Reviewed by Lee Say Keng, Knowledge Adventurer & Technology Explorer, February 2009.]

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to be financially independent and have a fulfilling life? Learn it from this book. It works!, January 21, 2009

By 

Sidarta Tanu (Richmond, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Flow of Time and Money: How to Create a Full and Prosperous Life (Paperback)

Lloyd Watts will help you make a plan to achieve financial independent and have a fulfilling life. The execution won't be easy, as you will need to make some sacrifices, but it works.

The Flow of Time and Money is probably one of the most practical and useful book in teaching on how to create a full and prosperous life. It tells you as it is, i.e. the truth, both the good and the "bad" (the sacrifices that you will need to make), to be successful. I've been doing most of what is written in this book for more than 10 years, and I know it works. Another good thing about this is that you don't have to be a genius or have a very high salary to achieve financial independence, however You do need to have some understanding about basic financial education, which is not a rocket science. In fact, it's all common sense. This is the kind of book that I've been waiting to see out there to help other people (and this is probably the kind of book I would write if I'm writing a book to share on how to achieve financial independence and to create a fulfilling life)

Now about the content of the book. It is very practical, and easy to understand as the author (Lloyd Watts) includes a lot of illustration to explain most of the concepts

Some of the critical topic of this book:

1. The concept of Money, Time, Life, Wealth and how they are correlated to each other.

2. Reasons why we might be struggling financially (who doesn't anyway in this kind of economy? 2008-2009 :))

3. The traps and why we fall to the traps

4. The path to financial independence

5. Realizing your dreams and having a long term perspective

6. Contributing back to the world

Key attitudes for people to achieve financial independence:

1. Lack of need for external indications of status

2. Ability to defer gratification

3. Strong financial education

4. No fear of numbers and accounting

5. Commitment to lifetime learning

6. Health financial responsibility in a relationship

7. Acceptance of wealth

8. Ability to make sustained and intermittent effort.

9. Ability to manage risk

In general what I like about this book:

1. Practical. It dives into the core problem or principle.

2. Includes a lot of guidance on what other book to read if you want to choose a specific path

3. It listed many ways to build wealth (so many people can relate/use as everyone have different specialty/talent)

4. Not a get rich quick scheme (which usually fail to live to it's promise which is too good to be true to begin with anyway)

5. It explain in very detail the importance of passive income (let your money work for you)

6. It explain in detail what the long term impact of "borrowing and spending" (and why "saving and spending" is not enough)

7. How to make the transition and transformation of where you are today towards the wealth building path

8. It includes the "giving back to the community" and make it a holistic view of a fulfilling life

9. It emphasize the importance of investing in yourself

What could make this book even better:

1. More real-life examples to explain the concept further (e.g. someone making $50,000 per year, what their wealth will look like for a certain expense/saving/investment level after 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, so on so forth. or other example of regular/average people that uses some of the method in this book and is successful. To be fair, he did explain his experience but I think he is one of the outlier/very sucessful case)

2. More detail explanation many of the topics/suggestion in addition to referring to other books (but to be fair, that might make the book a lot thicker and harder to read)

3. One other downside is that we will need to read some other books to understand many other important items/details mentioned in this book (which are also referenced in this book, which is good)

In conclusion, this is a must read if you are interested in beating the rat race and want to have a fuller and more prosperous life. I know from personal experience that the principles and suggestions from The Flow of Time and Money works. It's not easy to do (because of the sacrifices that needs to be made) but it works. And it's all common sense in my opinion. My final thoughts, I think the three first steps that are key to success (especially at the beginning of your journey) are to control your spending, have the strong will to defer gratification, and have some basic understanding on financial education. And along with those 3 things, you should also work hard and have high integrity which I think helps.

All the best,

Sidarta Tanu

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars All this book represents is a Cliffnote to the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad.", January 11, 2009

By 

Jeff Lippincott "JLIPPIN" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Flow of Time and Money: How to Create a Full and Prosperous Life (Paperback)

This book was OK. It was short (less than 100 pages if the blank pages are deleted), simple, and clearly written. I can't in good conscience give it a 4 or 5 star rating because it was just too short to even be called a book. And, I repeat AND, it was a complete rip off of "Rich Dad Poor Dad" (ISBN: 9780446677455). Maybe the diagrams look a little different since Kiyosaki, the author of RDPD, has trademark protected them. But in substance the instant book being reviewed is a "cliffnote" to RDPD.

The action plan found in this book and in RDPD is as follows:

1. During your youth take your education seriously; Do the best you can

2. When you take your first job use your education to get it

3. Make sure you work at a job where you can live way below your financial means

4. Don't waste what you earn; Save some, and invest some

5. Invest enough that you can live off your investments

6. Quit your job when you can afford to do so (the sooner the better)

7. Build an investment empire & enjoy life while you do it

8. Become a philanthropist if you can

Yesterday (1/10/09) I read the following quote by Thomas Friedman in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times Online edition entitled "Tax Cuts for Teachers:"

"You see, even before the current financial crisis, we were already in a deep competitive hole - a long period in which too many people were making money from money, or money from flipping houses or hamburgers, and too few people were making money by making new stuff with hard-earned science, math, biology and engineering skills."

I cite this quotation because it points out that few people are making money by making new stuff. And the real road to wealth and financial security is by doing just that - making new stuff. The 8 step action plan presented herein above will help you get wealthy and financially secure. But it is the making of new stuff that people want and need that will make you truly wealthy. If this book had emphasized this point more and made the 8 points above a sideshow, then I would be raising my rating considerably. But all we've got here was a "cliffnote" to RDPD. 3 stars!