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How Much is Your Time Worth?

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Wow, a Lot More Than I Thought

Recently I’ve been extremely busy and working hard trying to get things done. I know that the length of my list is my choice. Busy lives are nothing unusual, especially for those of us working in construction.

So, how can we be more productive and decide what things on the list are the most important? The answer to this question will be different for each of us, but it’s something we have within our control if we just do something.

Spending time wisely comes down to prioritizing and making decisions.

I’ve always struggled with giving my time the same level of importance as other people. I wouldn’t be late to meetings with customers, committees at church, or in the community. The lack of importance I give to my own time results in me being less productive than I could be.

As I was thinking about how busy I am and trying to figure out what I should do next, I had a thought.

What if there was a monetary penalty for every minute wasted?

Let’s be honest…there is.

What is each minute of my time really worth?

So, I did some calculations –

  • There are 60 minutes every hour
  • There is an average of 12 hours per my workday
  • There are 6 workdays per my work week
  • There are 52 work weeks per year
  • This means there are 224,640 minutes available to work each year
  • My gross revenue target for this year is $400,000.00
  • $400,000.00 divided by 224,640 minutes means each minute of the day is worth $1.78

$1.78 for each minute doesn’t seem like that much, until I did some more calculations –

  • $1.78 x 5 minutes = $8.90
  • $1.78 x 15 minutes = $26.70
  • $1.78 x 30 minutes = $53.40
  • $1.78 x 60 minutes = $106.80

Who knew that my time was that valuable?

It’s amazing how much the little things can change the big picture. This gave me a whole new sense of urgency. It has caused me to evaluate decisions differently. Which of these things on the list is worth spending that much time/money on?

It has caused me to focus more intensely on which actions I need to take to accomplish my mission.

I’ve never been one to give my time the value it’s worth. Working for myself, it’s always hard to give it a monetary value. This discovery changed that.

This week’s solution has cost me $160.20 so far and by the time I get it published it’s going to be closer to $220.00.

I sure hope you find at least that much value in it. 😊

Of course, everybody’s level of importance is going to be different based on individual preferences. But this new awareness of the value of my time has given me a new focused intensity to spend my time wisely.

So…it looks like the time I spend is $1.78 per minute.

It’s up to me to spend each minute wisely.

Rewritten from previous post

Are You Kidding…I Don’t Have Time to Plan for the New Year!

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That’s a Luxury I Just Can’t Afford

Here we are, already a week into the new year, and I’m not done with my annual planning yet. This is something that every year I intend to do before the end of the year, but it rarely gets done on time.

I know I’m not the only one struggling to get everything done, and I get it. Our lives are busy and just keeping up with daily things is usually more than we can accomplish. And now I’m suggesting adding annual planning and goal setting to the list!

I know I’m not going to get everything done, but this doesn’t mean I should quit trying.

The question is, how can I be the most productive with the time I have?

I think it comes down to intentionally balancing time spent focusing on the past, present, and future.

We can focus on the past and everything we didn’t get done. We can focus on the future and all the things we want to get done. Or we can focus on the present and all the things that we need to get done today.

Constantly giving an unbalanced amount of attention to any one of these will make us less productive. This is why I always try to remind myself to…

Learn from the past, look to the future, and live in the present.

This is a process for prioritizing the things on my list.

Here’s an example. This morning as I was checking the weather, I saw that late next week it is predicted to have low temperatures in the single digits. I live in a house that was built in 1916 without running water. When running water was added, it was installed just inside the north side of house. I’ve learned from the past that when it gets this cold the pipes can freeze.

Of course, when this happens it requires additional time to thaw them out. And if not thawed out soon enough it might freeze to the point of causing a leak which would take more time to repair, not to mention the cost in dollars.

After years of experience, I now know that a couple of rows of small square bales of hay stacked along the north wall of the house will help insulate the pipes. I also know that it’s hard for running water to freeze, and if we leave faucets trickling, they won’t freeze.

I could spend all my time focused on the past and the things that I experienced from previous frozen pipes, or I can glean what I learned from the past.

This brings us to looking to the future. If I need bales of hay stacked along the house…I need to get that done. This means I need to find some bales and pick them up. Where I normally get them, I can’t get to when it’s muddy, and it’s snowing and raining today. This means that I need the ground to either dry out or get cold enough to freeze. But I don’t want to wait until it’s too cold and the pipes freeze.

This is going to require the coordinating approval of getting the bales, the weather, and my schedule.

I could spend all my time focused on the future and the what ifs, or I could use what I do know, and plan for the future.

This brings us to living in the present. I already have more things to do than I can get done, and now I need to add getting bales to the list. When am I going to have time to go get hay bales and put them along the north wall of the house?

I know that spending time thinking and planning can seem like a waste, but if my pipes freeze, fixing the issue will take a lot more. The same is true for everything in our lives. We can take some time to plan or just deal with the frozen pipes as they come.

Everything comes down to what I choose to do, and it’s up to me to prioritize wisely.

This is where learning from the past, looking to the future, and living in the present intersect. These three things help us to prioritize what we’ve learned from our experiences, what we desire going forward, and what the first next thing is that should be done.

Planning for the new year is the same process as the water pipes. You should look back to past years and learn from them. Look to the coming year and what you hope to achieve. Live every minute of every day like it’s the only one and all the others depend on it.

The investment of time spent planning is worth every second.

How Do I Decide What’s Most Important on My “To Do List”?

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Knowing This Could Be the Difference of Life and Death for Your Business

I’ve written on this topic of time management and prioritizing things a lot. This is because it is a big problem that can determine whether your company will live or die.

There are so many things trying to get on the “to do” list and each one is competing for the top position. Deciding which one should get that spot is tough. There are so many great and important things that we need or want to do.

It’s easy to say that we have limited time but hard to actually spend it that way.

My computer’s battery is not lasting as long as it was when it was brand new. Recently while working out of the office without the power cord, I had 2-3 things that I wanted to get done before the computer shut down. This limited time forced me to sort and prioritize.

How do we decide what to say yes to?

Emergency situations often require triage. This is the process of prioritizing patients’ treatments based on the severity of their condition and the resources available. In these situations, victims are divided into three categories.

  • Those who are likely to live, regardless of what care they receive.
  • Those who are unlikely to live, regardless of what care they receive.
  • Those for whom immediate care might make a positive difference in outcome.

These choices aren’t easy and often require a quick “gut decision”. A pre-determined system, training, and experience aid in the process and provide for the greatest number of survivors.

Another life and death choice is deciding who gets a transplant when there are a limited number of organ donations available. Take for example a set of twins who both need a liver transplant and their father has one liver to give. Which little girl gets it? The early thoughts of a father would be to give half to each. The problem with this, half wouldn’t help either. The final decision will be determined by which one needs it most or which one is most likely to survive.

Most of the choices that we make in business aren’t this critical…or are they? The decisions we make can mean life or death for our business.

In medical life or death situations there is a system and plan in place before hand. This same type of system should be implemented in our business. We should predetermine how we are going to choose the most important thing to the life of our business. This is where things get hard.

What makes one thing more important than another?

What should be the highest priority? Should it be production or proposals, record keeping or customer service, marketing, or staff? We’re faced with tough decisions in business every day.

I can’t answer this question for you, but if you’re tired of struggling with this dilemma, having the right business building tools can help you shorten your “triage” list going forward.

Having the right tools will give your business the highest chance for survival.

How In the World Will I Ever Get My Blog Posts Turned into Podcasts?

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It’s Simple Really…Get People to Help Me Build This Dream

Last week I wrote about why I want to turn my blog posts into podcasts. I discussed some of my excuses for putting this off.

The why question is where things start, but if you don’t do something it’s also where things stop. Answering the how question is the next step.

Like anything, if you don’t do something…it’s not going to get done.

Most problem solvers or solution finders think that doing something means doing everything. There’s just not enough time to do everything. This is why the blog posts aren’t podcasts yet.

Back to last week’s post, I told you that I was going to be meeting with Nic at AdWise Creative later that day. We met and things are happening.

Just because Nic is going to help me with this, doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to do. It’s just different things. I don’t have to learn everything about podcasting to get this done. Learning everything takes a lot of time. I will work with Nic, do the things that I do and let him do the things he’s good at.

One of the things I’ve been struggling with since I started thinking about making podcasts out of my blogs is a lot of professional marketers, people that I trust, told me that I needed to use my own voice for this.

They would say…it’s not that hard, you can do this, it will sound more authentic if it’s your voice.

All these things are true. The problem is time. There just isn’t enough time.

So, consequently…there still are no podcasts.

As I’ve thought about this, I began to relate it to construction (imagine that, as a person whose life revolves around construction). The construction process makes total sense to me. It’s like second nature.

Just this past week I’ve had several different situations where people have asked me for help or guidance regarding construction projects.

What’s harder for them is second nature to me

Me doing my own podcasts is the same. It’s like a novice DIYer doing their own construction project. They can do it, but it takes a lot longer and there will be mistakes.

Construction done by a contractor or guidance from an experienced construction consultant will make the project go much quicker and better.

Quicker and better and getting it done sounds like a good plan.

We all have our God given purpose. It’s up to us to focus on that and not try to do everything.

Back to the podcasting. I need to focus on my gifts and strengths and hire others to do the things that aren’t.

At this point it would be better to help people build their dreams by getting the weekly solutions out there…even if it’s not my voice.

Currently the plan is for me to record a short intro and outro for each of the three different areas.

  • Systems and training to help construction companies searching for business solutions be more successful
  • Education and assistance to help overwhelmed construction customers navigate the construction process
  • Sharing lessons for building a better life using construction processes and a Biblical perspective

Nic will read and record the blog post turning it into a podcast. He will take care of the technical “podcasty stuff”. This is both of us focusing on our strengths.

I’m excited about getting these blog posts turned into podcasts. I hope getting the content out there in this audio format will reach more people and help them build their dreams.

Check back to follow along as we move forward in this process of building something new.

How To Manage Your Time and Prevent It from Becoming a Horror Story

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Self-employment is Scary Enough Without the Time Monster Chasing You

With this being Halloween season there are a lot of scary things out there. Managing your time as an entrepreneur doesn’t have to be one of them.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve discussed time management and how to keep it from being as complicated as rocket science. The first thing was being intentional and taking control of it.

The problem isn’t a lack of time…it’s a lack of self-control.

The second thing we discussed was getting your priorities in order and not letting the hot fires have control. It is easy to get distracted by all the things there are to do. Sometimes we need to fight hot fires, but it’s up to us to be clear on which fires are the priority.

It’s a matter of clarity before the fires even start.

My core values are a large part of my clarity of which fires are the most important and when. One of those core values is spending time wisely because there’s a limited amount. This is the third thing needed to be successful with managing time.

Depending on our abilities, desires and needs, we can make more money, make more friends, find more work, design new things, discover new ideas. Not that those things are easy, but they can be done.

With TIME…. you’ve got what you’ve got and there ain’t no more.

Here are 5 reasons why so many struggle with this –

  1. Trying to do too many things
  2. Lack of focus
  3. Not saying NO!
  4. Trying to do it all by myself
  5. Procrastination

(You can get more details about these reasons here)

God has given each of us this TIME to spend and He has given us the right amount for everything, Ecclesiastes 3. It’s up to us to spend it wisely!

With time being such a valuable commodity, it’s critically important to spend it wisely.

What is Worth Your Time? Not, “what your time is worth”. This changes the perspective of how we spend our time. What things are most important for me to spend time doing. Is it a call from one of my kids, serving a customer by solving a problem, spending some time with a dying friend or doing some work for the church?

Once time is gone you can never get it back. Don’t waste the little that you have.

This isn’t to say that time doesn’t have a monetary value…because it does. It scared me a little when determined what my time was worth.

Based on my target revenue goal the year I determined that…

my time is worth…$2.23 per minute.

Remembering this gives me a heightened sense of focus.

What spending your time wisely looks like can only be determined by you.

Like most things, we make time management scarier than it really is. Don’t be afraid of the time monster. Just face it down and show it whose boss.

You’ve got this!

Why Do We Make Managing Time as Complicated as Rocket Science?

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When in Reality, It’s as Simple as One, Two, Three

I’ve shared before about some of the great discussions we have in our masterclass. This week’s was no different.

The question that got the gears in my head spinning was this –

When self-employed and working from home, how does one schedule time and determine boundaries?

Now, is this a great question or what. How does one do this?

When working from home it’s easy to be sidetracked by all the things that need done, like – yard work, gardening, vacuuming, washing the dishes, repair projects, laundry, changing the oil in the car, checking out social media, researching new and better computer programs, emailing old friends… You get the point! All the things on this list are worthwhile and important things that need to be done.

There were some great answers from of the group.

  • I work when my wife is gone to work. When she gets home, I stop working and spend time with her.
  • I have an office space that is only accessed by going through the garage, up some stairs and through the attic.
  • I start my day at 8:00 just as if I was going to an office.

The key to managing time is intentionality!

Having been self-employed for most of the past forty years I have a head start on most of the people in this group. But believe me I understand. I’ve struggled with this for years and just began to figure out over the past 8-10 years.

My figuring it out took a big step forward with a wakeup call from God. He got my attention with a board upside the head, literally. This incident persuaded me to step back and look at things differently. I got a more well-rounded, big picture view of life and it helped me to see things differently.

I’m a workaholic and love what I do. Now I look at my whole life, all the different aspects of it, as my employment. This a word that is typically connected to a job, but that’s not completely accurate. Being employed is – the active use of or engagement in services. Being engaged in activity. I see employment as more than just a job.

The freedom perceived as a part of self-employment is the one thing that most often prevents these ventures from succeeding.

One of the biggest issues with self-employment is lack of boundaries. It’s like kids when they first move out of their parent’s home. There’s a newfound freedom. Nobody is looking over their shoulder telling them to get up and go to class or to not stay out late so they can get up and go to work.

Most people have been raised with some kind of structure. Working for someone else is the same thing. When we become self-employed it’s like moving out for the first time. There’s no boss preventing me from washing the dishes or mowing the yard.

This new freedom leads to an uncertain, unclear understanding of what we should do, when we should do it and in what order.

There are three things that need to be present if you are going to be successful in self-employment. –

  • Intentionality – Be intentional about what you spend your time on. Why is it that we won’t be late to a meeting with other people, but will blow off meeting with ourselves? We’ve been given enough time to do everything we should…just not everything we want.
  • Prioritization – This one can be tough. What makes one thing more important than another. This is where being crystal on who you are, who you’re going to help and how you’re going to help them comes in.
  • Spending time wisely – Time is limited. It is the most valuable commodity you have. It’s up to you to decide how much you’re going to spend and what you’re going to spend it on.

The SELF in self-employment means “the buck stops here”. It’s up to me to manage my time…no one else. Our human nature is to make things more complicated than they are or need to be.

Managing time doesn’t have to be rocket science. Intentionally prioritizing how you spend your time is all it takes.

Check back, we will break these down more in the coming weeks.

There is a Limited Amount of Time, Don’t Spend it All Worrying

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When it Rains it Pours…More Times Than Not, We’re the Ones Holding the Pitcher

What is worry? To feel uneasy or concerned about something; to be troubled. To cause one to feel anxious, distressed, or troubled.

In our weekly mastermind meetings periodically, each members gets the opportunity to ask questions of or present situations to the rest of the group for their input and thoughts. This past week it was my turn. My question was one that has been asked multiple times, by multiple people, in multiple ways, in multiple places.

How do I determine what I should spend my time on?

What makes one thing more important than another? This question came out of my frustration with not getting everything I want to, done.

The problem with this question is…I’m the only one that can answer it for me. Each of us is different and what is right for one person isn’t for another. My priorities aren’t yours.

It comes down to putting my big rocks in first. Most of the time we know the answer. We just need to step back, take a deep breath and get re-focused.

Remember that God has given each of us a purpose. Focus on that and it will make it easier to get the pieces to fit. The important thing to remember is to not worry and stress over it.

The Bible is full of Scriptures about worrying and none of them say that we should. They all say pretty much the same thing. Don’t worry. Worrying won’t make us live longer. Give our worries to God. He will help us figure it out.

I wasn’t worried as much as uncertain about what to do first. Uncertainty is a better description of my feelings. I was just looking for clarity of direction. How do I get more done?

Whether it’s worry or uncertainty that you’re dealing with…it’s within your control.

You’ve probably heard the idiom, “When it rains, it pours.” This generally refers to situations when bad things are happening, then more bad things are going to happen.

This is a pretty negative perspective.

If it’s true for bad things, then I think the same thing is also true for good things. I’m going to make it pour good things.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with everything that you’re trying to do. Just remember…

There’s a limited amount of time and we hold the pitcher.

You can decide what and how much you will do.

How Much is Your Time Worth?

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Wow, a Lot More Than I Thought

Over the past several weeks either I or my assistant, on several occasions, have been late to our regularly scheduled daily meetings. Most of the time it’s just a few minutes. But there were a couple of times that it was closer to 30 minutes.

It’s not like either of us were just being lazy and chose to be late. In every case there were some miscalculations of the schedule prior or some unexpected situations that came up. We all know that life happens.

Being on time comes down to prioritizing and making decisions accordingly.

I’ve always struggled with giving my time the same level of importance as other peoples. I wouldn’t be late to meetings with customers, committees at church, or in the community. The lack of importance of my own time oozes over to the time of my assistant’s. This is unacceptable.

As I was thinking about this and considering ways to give my time a greater level of importance I came up with an idea. What if there was a monetary penalty for every minute that we were late. Let’s say $1.00 per minute. If I’m late I pay her a dollar and if she’s late she pays me. This caused me to consider…

What each minute of my time is really worth?

So, I did some calculations –

  • There are 60 minutes every hour
  • There is an average of 12 hours per my workday
  • There are 6 workdays per my work week
  • There are 52 work weeks per year
  • This means there are 224,640 minutes available to work each year
  • My gross revenue target for this year is $500,000.00
  • $500,000.00 divided by 224640 minutes means that each minute of the workday is worth $2.23

$2.23 for each minute doesn’t seem like that much, until I did some more calculations –

  • $2.23 x 5 minutes = $11.15
  • $2.23 x 15 minutes = #33.45
  • $2.23 x 30 minutes = $66.90
  • $2.23 x 60 minutes = $133.80

Who new that my time was that valuable?

It’s amazing how much the little things can change the big picture. This gave me a whole new sense of urgency. It has caused me to evaluate decisions differently. Which of these things on the list is worth spending that much time/money on?

It has caused me to focus more intensely on which actions I need to take to accomplish my mission.

I’ve never been one to give my time the value its worth. Working for myself it’s always hard to give it a monetary value. This new discovery changed that. This weekly solution has cost me $267.60 so far and by the time I find some pictures and get it uploaded it’s going to be closer to $350.00.

I sure hope you find that much value in it. 😊

Of course, everybody’s level of importance is going to be different based on individual preferences. But this new awareness of the value of my time has given me a new focused intensity to spend my time wisely.

So…it looks like the penalty for being late to the meeting is going to be $2.23 per minute.

What Makes One Thing More Important Than Another?

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How to Decide What’s Urgent, Important or Not

Since the start of the new year, I’ve been working to find clarity in my prioritizing. I wrote about the value of time and how to decide where to spend it. I wrote about the importance of putting the big rocks in first and determining what makes one rock more important than another.

This is the hard part.

Rocks are hard…get it? 😊

Steven Covey’s time management quadrant in the previous post makes the idea of sorting things into the 4 areas clear. Different things need a different level of attention given to them.

  • Quadrant 1 is fire-fighting (urgent & important). This is easily recognized and where most of us spend way too much time. This is the get down to the core action of, if the house is on fire and the phones ringing…do we answer the phone or get the kids out of the house? The problem is we should have spent more on important rather than urgent and maybe we could have prevented the fire.
  • Quadrant 2 is quality time (important & not urgent). This is the area where we should focus. It’s where we get the most return on our investment of time and energy. It’s also the hardest because there’s no immediate rush like there is when fighting fires.
  • Quadrant 3 is distractions (urgent & not important). We can fill this quadrant with an endless list of small and trivial tasks convincing ourselves that they are important, because they probably are. The things in this quadrant require less time and energy than the ‘really’ important tasks. The question is, are you doing them because they’re important…or because it feels good to check thing off the list?
  • Quadrant 4 is time-wasters (not important & not urgent). The things in this quadrant are the things of least importance. These things serve no direct purpose in accomplishing the important things in your life. You want to avoid wasting time on these things.

We have a limited amount of time…spend it wisely.

As I read through the different quadrants in this example, I was perplexed with some of the things listed.

It seemed to me that some of the things in quadrant 4 were important things and not necessarily time wasters, i.e. entertainment (TV) and stress relief. In quadrant 2 was recreational activities. For me watching TV is recreational. And isn’t “relieving of stress” pretty important? The more I studied it the clearer it became…

It’s up to us what goes in our quadrants!

It comes down to being crystal clear on who we are and what our specific purpose is. This is the problem. Most of us haven’t or don’t want to spend the time and energy to figure it out. We just float through life without a clear direction of where we’re going or how we’re going to get there.

In the Ayn Rand book Fountainhead architect Howard Roark is super clear on who he is and what he’s willing to do or not. Because of his lack of conformity to the status quo, he struggles to make a living. He is almost broke but is given an opportunity to design and build a bank building that would be very profitable for him.

As he meets with the bank board, they ask him to make a few changes that would require that he conform. He turns the job down and goes to work doing manual labor in a quarry.

I want Howard Roark’s clarity.

I do think there is a place for conformity. It’s not always wise to cut one’s nose off to spite one’s face. However if we have Mr. Roark’s clarity, we can then determine what makes things urgent, important or not in our lives.

You get to decide, but if you want clarity…you have to decide.

Deciding What Your Big Rocks Are

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What Should I do First?

This past week as I was writing in my journal, I was considering what the day’s priorities were. What were the most important things to focus on today, if I’m going to achieve my goals? As I thought I wrote…

What are the big rocks that I need to put in the jar first?

I read about this time/priority analogy several years ago in Steven Covey’s book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I hadn’t thought about this for some time and I don’t know why I thought of it then. I assume it’s due to the recent attention being giving to accomplishing my goals for the coming year.

Here’s how this story goes:

One day this expert was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration I’m sure those students will never forget. After I share it with you, you’ll never forget it either.

As this man stood in front of the group of high-powered over-achievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz.” Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.

When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone in the class said, “Yes.” Then he said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.

Then he smiled and asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?” By this time the class was onto him. “Probably not,” one of them answered. “Good!” he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?”

“No!” the class shouted. Once again he said, “Good!” Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!”

“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is:

If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

Dr. Steven R. Covey, First Things First

I love this big rock example of prioritizing our actions. Too often we approach time as though there’s no limit. My time management budget certainly makes it clear that this is not the case. (currently I’m over my time limit for the year, by 746 hours)

As I study this time management spreadsheet it gives me a much clearer picture of where my time is getting spent and a way to determine what rocks should be put in first and what ones should be left out. There are so many great things to choose from but if I’m going to be the most productive, I need focused intensity on the big rocks that help me to achieve my goals.  

What are the big rocks in your life?

Growing in your faith? Spending more time with your family? Serving your customers better? Paying off debt? Taking better care of yourself physically and mentally? Helping with community projects?

Here are three short video examples of how putting the big rocks in first matters. The first explains this perspective well.

Put the Big Rocks in First

Time Management & the Jar of Life

Jar of Life