When converting a time value like 9 days, 14 hours, and 0 minutes into a single unit, you need to set a reference point to calculate the past time accurately. To do this, first, convert 9 days to hours, which is 9 days x 24 hours/day = 216 hours. Then, add the 14 hours to get a total of 230 hours. Finally, account for the 60 minutes within each hour, resulting in 13,800 minutes in the past.