How much is your time worth?

Seems like a silly question, but given that we generally have limited time that we can spend on any give activity, our time is very valuable. Let me give you an example. The president of the United States lives in a very nice house. He is basically paid to run the country. We have very high expectations for his ability to keep things under control and make sure that we are not upsetting other countries as he goes about his day-to-day activities. I’m guessing that some of you are homeowners. With every home come some responsibility for maintenance (although there are some people out there who haven’t figured that out) Where I live, my lawn requires weekly mowing. Takes about 2 hours. If I trim, takes about another 2 hours. Well, the President’s house is much nicer than mine and his yard is a little larger. Oh, and he’s got that Rose Garden thing going (I spray anything that comes up that is not grass with grass and weed killer – time management technique). Now let’s suppose that for the sake of discussion, the President’s yard and garden maintenance takes about 16 hours per week. The President has a couple of choices. He can spend time mowing, trimming and pulling weeds for 16 hours each week (832 hours per year). The President at the time of this writing gets paid about $400,000, probably works about 10 hours per day average 265 days per year, so his average hourly wage is about $110 per hour or so. If the President works 16 hours per week in the yard, it’s costing him about $92,000 per year in actual salary. My guess is that the cost to the nation is much more in issues that get delayed or even ignored. In simple terms, if the President spends half of the $92,000 per year for a staff to do the maintenance, the gain to the nation as a whole is much, much more.

I think you can see that time is valuable. What is your time worth. If you are stuck in a dead-end job and need to get out, every hour you spend not working on something that could change your future is costing you money, happiness, college for your kids, the list goes on and on. Your time is more valuable than you ever dreamed when you look at the big picture.

So what can you do to make the most of the limited time you have? Examine your current situation. Look at everything that needs to get done. Can your spouse help with any of the activities? How much time can you devote per day? Does it make more sense to pay someone to help with the development of your website if you are going to have to learn from scratch? Should you use a drop shipper or should you locate a wholesaler to provide you product that you handle? Should you minimize your shipping time by setting up a UPS account or make daily trips to a postal drop location? How can you better organize your activities? Standardizing your auction ads so that there is more fill in the blank can save time. What automation tools are available that could save you a few hours per week for a minimal investment? Think each step of your business through in detail. Time management is critical to your success, even if you already are making $400,000 per year as President of the United States.

I think a phrase from an old Moody Blues song says it best…. “Time waits for no one. No not even you.” (Driftwood). Your time is valuable and the longer you wait, the more you waste of it, the less you do of the things that truly make a difference…well you can see the end result.