Time Managment and Your Power Hour
“What – you may ask – does a snoozing cat have to do with time managment ?” Well, Milly here is very aware of when it is time to take breaks. You see her most pressing time management issue is timing that crucial pounce amongst the shrubs, when there’s a juicy bird for the taking!
Much of her time is taken up with the understanding of the importance of delegation and so she let’s me know when it is time to fill her bowl up or open her portal to her kingdom outside in the garden. But more about the significance of Duchess Milly and sneaky feline habits later…
Meantime, we mere humans however, have a whole different time scale and set of pressures to juggle. I for one have always struggled with procrastination for instance, to say nothing of prioritisation!
But recently…my mind was blown by my biggest wake up call of the decade to come! My New Year’s Resolution has been injected with rocket fuel! I am in that on-going process of building my money mindset and moving towards real prosperity and away from survival mode. Then came the call from the Senior Vice President of Marketing for my Internet Marketing company…
This past six months nearly, I have been struggling to stay on track with my ‘time management’. It’s always been a struggle for me and I won’t make excuses…we all only have 24 hours – albeit perhaps personal circumstances do have some impact, but nevertheless… I have always felt I could do better and have made consistent efforts at balancing pressures and responsibilities.
Now, I’ll be honest here, I know I can do much better at prioritising my time. I have chronic (monthly) ADHD, in an industry geared to distracting the best of us!
But who would have thought that one of the keys to time management skills might be knowing what you are worth on an hourly basis? This is eye opening stuff I have grappled with before as an under-paid employee, but never as an entrepreneur!
It’s so easy to calculate exactly what you are worth as a self-employed person, right down to the “hour”. I used to do this as a six monthly ritual when I had a J.O.B. to see how my employer valued me – (less than £10 per hour all told…! : -S )
So many people who are self employed or own their own business and work on commission never really know what they’re time is worth exactly, let alone what they’re worth “per hour.”
Why is this is a BIG problem?
Well, if YOU don’t know what YOUR time is worth per hour or per day, how can anyone else who wants to contract your services? Worse still…if no one knows what YOUR time is worth how could they ever “value” YOU or YOUR time or YOUR service?
Read that last bit again and think about it for a moment.
OK Well, the good news is, there is a way to work out what you are worth BY THE HOUR. The eye opener for me when I did this as a business owner, I was even more uncomfortable about my sleep ins and some other time-consuming habits that I had been allowing to sneak in up until that point…
This, my friend, is a really powerful tool and unlike any other time management system you may ever have adopted. It defies all general time management and productivity principals.
OK, so are you ready with your pen and calculator…?
Let’s say you earn $200,000 per year (or perhaps that’s what you want to earn) and you work 8 hours per day 5 or 6 days per week. Take out a few weekends and holidays and call it 250 actual work days per year instead of 365. So, then:250 work days per year multiplied by 8 work hours in a day would equal 2,000 “work hours” in a year. With me so far? Easy, hey?
So this works out at your being worth $100 per hour, right?
Wrong….lol!
Studies have shown over and over again that, at best, 1/3 of your work time is actually “work time” meaning only about 3 of the 8 hours of your work day are actually “profit producing” work hours. And nowadays, with all the distractions we’re faced with, it’s likely a LOT less than 3 hours… much less.
But for argument’s sake, let’s call it 3 hours. And let’s calculate your real hourly worth.
So, take the same 250 work days in a year and now multiply it by our NEW number – 3. Remember, 1/3 or less of your time will be productive, “profit producing” time. Now, 3 hours in the day (not 8), which would now equal 750 “real work hours” per year. Now, your time is worth $267 per hour. This is the real cost of that hour on Facebook or hanging out with friends!
This means you’re worth three times what you would have originally thought and your time three times more valuable!
This simple formula has rocket fuelled my New Year resolution to be more productive. I am more conscious of my time a LOT more and am wasting a LOT less of it… Knowing my true professional value is one helluva motivator for me not letting a more of my time get wasted by either my lax habits or anyone else’s for that matter.
My colleague, Andrew got this time management system from Dan Kennedy. Let me know what your reaction is when you do the numbers…
And remember – if you won’t put a value on your time, no one else will either…
If you are looking to really get your ‘self-management’ maximised, take a look at Dan Kennedy’s book, where the formula came from:
“No B.S. Time Management For Entrepreneurs – The Ultimate, No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners Guide To Time Productivity & Sanity.”
Great title and definitely one on my list for mindset training this year… Let me know if you have read it and how it is helping with your time management…
(My guilty secret and sneaking time waster… a little afternoon nap with my friend Milly…What’s yours?)
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