Not all your time is valued equally. For example, people who spend their time doing more profitable work make more money. Makes sense, right?

Have you ever thought about the value of your time?

People who spend their time investing in others build better relationships. People who spend their time creating a flexible career enjoy more freedom. And people who spend their time working on high-impact projects contribute more to society.

It doesn’t matter what you want to achieve in your life, wealth, freedom, to make a contribution, build friendships, improve your health, or all of these. It all comes down to how you spend and value your time.

The difficulty lies in that you may want it all, yet it appears you can’t have it all, if you don’t have enough time. In addition, wanting to attract more clients takes away from spending time with your family. So it may feel like a trade-off, determining where you spend your time. And that’s why you need to understand how to manage these trade-offs on a day-to-day basis effectively.

The Value of Time: What is One Hour Worth?

We often get so engaged in the things we do that we don’t even realize that it takes up so much precious time. If you ever received an email from me, you know I have a personalized signature at the bottom. As people say, and so does the internet, setting up a signature is easy. I tried to do this myself. Many hours and an incredibly awful signature later, I decided no, not for me. I need help. I called an IT company and within an hour and after paying $40 it was fixed. Making that call was a better use of my time and my money.

I’ll quickly do it – never works out.

Do you ever find yourself in situations like that? Especially when I feel I can do that “quickly” (when it’s not my expertise), I now know I am on a slippery path. The underestimation of the value of my time.

But how do you know the value of your time? When someone wants to work with you and offers to pay you $0.10 per hour, it’s easy. You’ll say no. But should someone offer you $10,000 per hour instead, you’ll say yes.

It’s not about the obvious cases. It’s more about the gray area.

The value of your time - Amaze Yourself top notch coach

Track your time

A good way forward is to track your time, knowing how much time you spend on what. For example, have you ever felt at the end of the day, you haven’t achieved as much as you wanted -even though you worked 10 hours straight? Or have you felt depleted after finishing a task that took you hours instead of the 30 minutes you had in time?

When we don’t keep track of our time, we’re unclear how much time we actually spend on activities. You’ll then never be able to say whether you’re working effectively or what the value of your time is.

Tracking money

The next step you need to take is tracking money. How much money you’re making and how much money you could have made, should you have been using your time more effectively?

There are various ways of tracking your time, with time registration and excel spreadsheets. For me personally, I like to use easier (and quicker) methods to see whether something is working. This is part of what I’ll share in my next MasterMind, ‘ How to Win Time.

Biggest mistake

The biggest mistake people make is that once they determined their time’s value and decide to outsource, they’ll still not use their time effectively. For example, let’s say the value of one of your hours is $250. Posting on social media, through a scheduling platform for $34 per month, or using a VA for $25 per hour, might be a better use of their time ánd money.

But only when you use that freed-up time to indeed work with or win clients.

Otherwise, it’s a double whammy! They’re spending valuable money, and with the time freed up, they’re still not focusing on core activities.

Get your focus back

Keep your focus on the core activities. Those are the activities that bring you closer to your goal. When it is making more money, make sure to focus on profitable activities. If it is to make more impact, focus on becoming an influencer.

Don’t let the distractions rule your day, keep focus. When this is something you struggle with, then the MasterMind ‘ It IS Your Time ‘ is for you. Within 3 months, you have your focus back, and you’ll see the results in your company! Going from overwhelmed to satisfied at the end of the day. Read more about it here  . Or send me a reply to chat to me about it .

MasterClass – How to win time

When you want to know more about how you can win more time, join my complementary MasterClass How to Win Time.

Monday, August 23 @ 12:00 Eastern Time / 18:00 Central Europe (Amsterdam) / 17:00 (London). Simply state I am in , and you’ll receive a Zoom link .

 

Yvonne Dam

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