"Pay yourself first" is a famous quote and principle from Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". I like the quote because it promotes the idea of intentionally putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Especially in relation to where you spend your time and focus.
Being comfortable complacent
A lot of people, including myself, want to achieve more than what they're currently doing. This leads to an exploding number of "side hustles". And even worse - idle side hustles.
After working at a job for a full day, it's easy to not have the energy to do any productive work. It's way easier to just watch TV, scroll social media or do some other mindless activity.
Even worse, justifying it to ourselves is equally easy. We can easily convince ourselves that today wasn't the right day to do it, anyways. It's probably better to wait until tomorrow.
I don't feel like doing anything right now. Maybe tomorrow.
– Most people, never getting anything done
Intentionally being uncomfortable
Imagine if we instead flipped this on it's head. While fully energized, we spent time and energy working on our passion projects - our side hustles.
Afterwards, just like before, we're tired. We want to watch TV. Except, it's no longer just ourselves we need to justify it to. Our boss and our teammates probably wouldn't appreciate the fact that we watched TV instead of working.
You didn't do anything all week? You're fired!
– Your boss
We obviously don't want to be fired. To avoid that situation, I'm sure we would find the energy to do our job.
Time creditors
The reason we find it easier to find energy for our job, as opposed to our side project, is that we have an external party who is expecting us to do it. Also, the fact that there will be very real negative consequences if we don't.
These are what I would call "time creditors". They are entities that you owe your time, energy, and focus to.
When we have a creditor to worry about, it's much easier to buckle up and get stuff done.
Conclusion
I'm not arguing people should do a bad job at work because they were up all night working on their side projects. You still have a very real responsibility to show up and be productive.
Also, it might be hard to implement fully in the real world. However, I think it's an interesting thought. I wonder what would happen if we all started paying ourselves first.