爱思英语编者按：时间匆匆忙忙就走到了3月，感觉刚刚穿上秋裤，就要开始挑夏天的凉鞋了。时间都去哪儿了呢？不要感慨了，今天来学学时间的表达！

It’s already 1 March!!! Where has the time gone?! One minute I was bringing the Christmas tree down, the next minute I’m making preparations for spring and Easter.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, time seems to be flying by a bit too quickly for my liking. In this day and age of instant communication where the need to respond to email, What’s App messages, Snapchat, Facebook and text messages is no longer an option but an absolute requirement. This expectation to respond immediately has meant that our days have become busier and busier so much so that 24 hours in a day are often not enough to accomplish all that we want to achieve.

Time has become a precious commodity or a limited resource both in our personal and working lives. There are in fact a lot of metaphorical expressions in English that show how valuable time is.

In this post, I’ve selected 12 expressions related to time that I found in Ian McKenzie’s book “Financial English” that are frequently used in English. I have used a business context for the examples.

1. Take time花时间
Don’t worry. I know things haven’t been easy and that it will take a little more time for things to pick up, but things will turn around.

2. Time left剩下时间
How much time have we got left to present our findings to the board?

3. Run out of time没时间了
We need a decision from the bank. We’re running out of time.

4. Spare the time抽出时间
I really cannot spare more time on this project.

5. Worth the time值得花时间
I don’t think this account is worth the time we’re going to need to make it viable.

6. Save time节约时间
It will save us a huge amount of time if we were to forewarn our suppliers of the changes ahead of the meeting.

7. Waste of time浪费时间
We’ve had to input all the data again onto the system. It’s been a such a waste of time.

8. Spend time花时间
Look, we’ve spent a great deal of time on this tender. We cannot afford to lose it now.

9. Allocate time分配时间
We need to allocate sufficient time on this task to ensure it gets done properly.

10. Lose time耽误时间
There’s no time to lose. We need to head to the airport now.

11. Invest time投入时间
We’ve invested a lot of time on cultivating this connection. We cannot abandon it now.

12. Give time宽限时日
If you could just give me more time, I promise I’ll get the figures to you by tomorrow.