Having previously covered personal productivity and the importance of dedicating time to high payoff activities, it’s important to put things into perspective by looking at the actual value of time and what it represents.
When thinking about the value of time, it’s interesting to note how people generally refer to it. Terms like spending it, saving it, wasting it and how we wish we had more of it, are all used when people talk about money, hence the popular phrase ‘time is money’.
One of the best ways to determine the value of time is to calculate the value of an average hour of work. With this value, it becomes easier to determine whether a specific task is worth the investment – you might find there are a lot of daily activities that aren’t!
Once you know how much your time is worth, then it becomes easier to make judgments about how to spend each working day. Without realising, you will begin to shape an idea about which tasks are most important, prioritising your workload for the good of the company.
With this new information in hand, it becomes much easier to know which activities should be delegated to the wider team, freeing up more time to complete high payoff tasks. If you work for yourself, then it can help you identify the tasks that need to be outsourced – it’s a process that will help you become more productive and allow your business to grow.
To help you visualise the starting point for the process, get a calculator and enter the salary you’d like to earn this year, being as ambitious as you like. Divide this number by 1800 (roughly the number of working hours you have per year) and see how much an hour your time is really worth – not what your business charges, but what it would cost them to pay you the salary you want.
Now if you wanted £100K salary this year, each of your hours would be worth £55.56. As there are people out there that will run your salary calculations and undertake the RTI submissions to HMRC for around £15 per month, you will have to do it in around 15 minutes, including all the deductions and logging into your account etc., to make it a valuable use of your time!
When it comes to personal productivity and maintaining a high level of output, it’s important that you set a value on your time and work towards it. Putting a price on all the tasks you undertake in a day, from brushing your teeth and making breakfast to meeting a client and typing an email, will help you figure out which tasks you need to eliminate, simplify and delegate.
Remember, it’s all about working smarter not harder, so utilise your resources and wider team to help you achieve the targets you’ve set yourself.