Double Your Output Without Doubling Your Time
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Everything that we do can be directly related to a time value. From mowing the lawn to traveling, to getting your hair done, to actually working. Every hour that we spend alive and doing something, has a value.
Take, for example, an eight-hour road trip. By the time you set out on your destination - if you decide to drive - it will more than likely end up taking you 10 hours to reach your destination, by the time you factor in pit stops, potty breaks, stopping for food, traffic, construction and all of the other things that take up time.
Now let's say that you value your time at $25 an hour, for the sake of easy math, or whatever your regular pay comes out to on an hourly basis. In time value alone you've already spent $250 making the 10-hour trip. Now, add in your fuel and your food, possibly a hotel, and you're looking more in the $400 range – minimum – one way. Could you have flown round trip for the same cost in half the time? If you were able to get there in half the time, would you have been able to use the other half more productively?
It's time to start thinking outside the box. And just because up front, traveling by car seems to be the less expensive option, because fuel might be cheaper, in the long run, it's not going to be. Because that $400 is going to multiplied by two times. Because you're going to go there, but you also have to come back. So your $400 essentially becomes $800. Now, depending on how many people are traveling with you, that cost can be spread a little bit. But in general, for one to two people traveling, in this scenario, it would have been cheaper to fly.
We need to use the same type of thought process when we're looking at our work as well. Is what we're working on right now - this very minute – a valuable use of your skill set for your company's bottom line? Is it worth the amount of time that it's taking? Is there a way for us to free up this time, in this space, by either creating a more efficient process or finding somebody that can do it for us while we work on something more in line with our passions and skills? Or is this a process or project that needs to be eliminated altogether? Is what you're working on worth it?
Everybody is good at something but nobody is good at everything. <<<< write that down DIY Darla…
But it's also important to remember that when you're beginning a project or a new business, it is going to be more work-heavy in the front end than it will be in the back end. You will be spending more hours up front creating, evaluating, distributing, participating in all the things it takes to make your business run. But one of the most important skills you can gain is the skill of delegation.
Not all of us are good at the same things, and not all of us have time to be good at everything. So as you begin your journey, I think one of the most important things you can do to save your time and ultimately give yourself the ability to make more money, is to let someone else who is good at the task that you dislike, take care of it for you. This type of outsourcing can give you more opportunity to create products and things that allow you to make more money in the long run.
A few ideas of this type of outsourcing would be like hiring someone to clean your house or mow your yard. Someone to handle your social media or your digital marketing. An accountant, a lawyer, somebody to just handle the things that are necessary to make your business function, but take so much time up that they're eating away from the things that actually make your company valuable.
What can you do today to watch the value of your time?
I personally “wrote” this blog post using an app called Rev. Rev is an audio recorder that also transcribes the audio for $1 per minute. So instead of taking me the usually 4ish hours to write, edit, and schedule this post, it took about 1. Yep. 1 hour. With efficiency like that, I can definitely double my output in half the time.
