Because time is free, like most of the most valuable things in life, we tend to take it way too much for granted.
Even though we’re inundated with words like productivity, time management, and phrases like “time is money”, it’s still VERY easy to not TRULY understand how valuable your time is.
It’s hard to really, truly, not just understand it on an intellectual level, but understand it on an emotional level to the point where you can really consistently act on it.
To solve that, let’s understand a simple fact we have been conditioned with.
When something is priced, we tend to understand its value because we can use it to compare.
Average watch might be around $40.
We see one being sold for $5,000, we say “hey, that watch must be pretty valuable.”
So we must follow the same logic when it comes to understanding the value of time.
We must price it in terms of something we can compare it with.
In this case, like the phrase goes, we use money.
But how do you price your time with money?
Your first instinct might be to choose how much you’re currently being paid per hour.
NO.
That’s how much your EMPLOYER measures YOUR CURRENT value of time.
We need to flip the capitalized words there.
How much do YOU measure YOUR DESIRED POTENTIAL value of time?
You need to price it YOURSELF by understanding the POTENTIAL it has in reaching YOUR DESIRED financial goal.
To do that, let’s choose the unoriginal goal of having a million dollars in cold hard cash at the bank.
I’m not talking about “net worth” where you sneakily put in the value of your house that you haven’t even begun to pay off yet and all the miscellaneous items lying around that you know you can’t immediately sell but put in there anyway to jack up the net worth number in order to feel better about your financial picture.
I’m talking about NO DEBT.
And a million in cold hard cash an the FDIC insured bank.
Sounds nice eh?
And let’s say you plan to get that cold hard cash in 10 years. I choose 10 to keep the math simple and 10 years is in the realm of “doable”. You figure you start a business and sell it or just grow it. You have a business idea and plan in your head.
Ok.
Let’s now assume the standard 40 hour workweek and 50 weeks in a year (to keep the math simple and give you two weeks of vacations a year).
That’s 2,000 working hours a year so 20,000 working hours in 10 years.
$1,000,000/20,000 = $50/hour.
So to reach your goal, you have to earn $50/working hour from here on out to get your cold hard million.
But wait.
That’s assuming you actually earn $50/hour RIGHT NOW PLUS you don’t spend any of it.
Of course you’re going to spend some of that money so you can have a roof over your head, transportation, food to eat, clothes to wear, etc.
And don’t forget taxes too.
And insurance.
So let’s say you spend $70,000/year of that money for 10 years so you’re only left with $300,000 at the end of 10 years.
But you want cold hard million in 10 years.
You don’t want it in 33 years.
So that means you really have to earn $1,700,000 in 10 years.
Do the math and that turns out to be $85/hour.
Here’s a brief side note:
It’s important to DO THE MATH.
You CANNOT arbitrarily pick a number and have that be your dollar/hour figure.
It has no meaning.
You do the math like this and by linking it to your desired financial goal, it’s got substance. Weight. Don’t pick a random high number. Do the math. Feel the weight.
So for every hour you are at wok from RIGHT NOW until 10 years, must have you actually earning $85 OR have what you do in that one hour contribute to learning how to earn that $85 back in the future via marketing, sales, systems, investing, leveraging, joint venturing, etc.
Suddenly, when you have this dollar figure attached to an hour, you cringe at the thought of wasting time.
You wonder if it’s really worth spending $85 to talk about trivial stuff at the water cooler during the day.
You wonder if it’s really worth spending $85 rearranging your desk so you don’t have to work on that task you know you have to do that day.
You wonder if it’s really worth spending $85 walking around the office, taking long bathroom breaks during the day.
You begin to wonder how you can squeeze the most out of every hour.
And even though this hourly rate only applies to the 8 hours you work a day, you can’t help but carry it over as it’s a set standard. You value the worth of an hour as $85.
At home, you wonder if it’s really worth spending $85 watching bad news for an hour.
At home, you wonder if it’s really worth spending $85 to cook and clean up for an hour.
At home, you wonder if it’s really worth spending $85 to play a game for an hour.
You begin to get in the HABIT of asking yourself if it’s really worth spending $85 doing ____________________ for an hour.
You suddenly become a “time surgeon” as you look through your day.
You find ways to get your workout done faster.
You find ways to clean the house faster.
You find ways to get more hours.
And not only that, you really begin to MILK each hour.
You try to get the very best out of it. You try to get your money’s worth so you’re that much more aware of the present as well.
In essence, you get a hell of a lot done more in one hour.
All because you decided on what YOUR POTENTIAL DESIRED value of an hour is in dollars.
