87 seconds #2: Don’t Volunteer.

Summary reading time: 65 seconds

You want to be truly efficient and maximize your impact? Then don’t volunteer.

Volunteering usually means you’re trading your time for a task you’re no expert in.

To maximize your impact: Focus on what you’re best at. Charge your highest possible hourly rate. Then pay some of that money to people who are experts at making more impact.

It’s like outsourcing: If we all focus on what we’re best at, and pay others to do the rest, we achieve the best possible results in the least amount of time.

Find a cost-benefit calculation example below.

Today’s challenge

Think of 1 occasion where you volunteered your time. What did you do? How long for? How did it feel?

Post it in the comments below.

Don’t be afraid to be the first one to comment. There’s no right or wrong here. We’re all in the process of learning from each other. So be brave and get the conversation going.

Next week

Hack #3: Speed reading: Cut your reading time in half!

Your turn

• Know someone who loves volunteering? Tag them in the comments - I’d love to hear their take on this.
• New here? Subscribe to never miss out on these weekly high-impact hacks.
• Any questions, or other challenges you’re having? Any feedback on last week’s challenge (Know Your Why)? Put them in the comments.

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Further reading

Cost-benefit calculation example

Imagine Jane, a successful business consultant. Her standard hourly rate is 100 $.

Jane is aware of the countless benefits of forests, and hence decides to help plant some trees. She calls the local volunteering organization and signs up for a tree-planting event on the upcoming Wednesday. She takes a day off for that.

The volunteering organization selects and prepares the area to be reforested, buys the seedlings, organizes shovels and axes and takes care of food and drinks.

All Jane has to invest is her time.

On Wednesday, Jane rocks up to the event and manages to plant 30 trees over the course of 6 hours. She leaves tired, but with a feeling of satisfaction, having met cool people, enjoyed a day outdoors doing physical work, and planted 30 trees.

She feels it was absolutely worth it.

But was it really?

Let’s do the math.

Jane planted 30 trees in 6 hours. That’s 5 trees per hour. And that’s nothing but the planting - all preparations, and all ongoing caretaking, was and will be done and paid for by someone else, since Jane only signed up for a one-day event.

If Jane had worked those six hours at her standard rate of 100 $ per hour, she would have made 600 $.

If she had invested that money to plant trees with a company like Click A Tree, Jane could have planted over 60 trees in Thailand.

1. That’s double the amount of trees
2. That includes the planning and future nursing and protection of the trees.
3. That creates stable, long-term jobs for people living in less privileged regions of our planet.

Summa summarum: If you truly want to maximize your impact, do what you're best at. Charge your highest possible hourly rate - and then give that money to professionals to do what they do best.

If you want to send emails, you don’t start programming your own email provider, right? You pay (with money, data, or both) a company like Google to use their email program - because it’s the smartest thing to do.

And that’s exactly the same for truly making impact: Focus on what you do best - then pay people who specialize in making impact to help maximize your impact. It’s the smartest thing to do.

Is volunteering bad?

No. Absolutely not. The perception of volunteering is bad - more on that below.

Volunteering itself is great, and I personally volunteer regularly: I collect trash along the roads or plant trees with my team. Earlier this month I helped weed out invasive plant species in Southern Germany, which threaten the survival of endangered local plant species.

It’s fun. And I highly recommend it.

But: Don’t volunteer for the wrong reasons. Be aware that volunteering mostly serves you rather than anyone else.

You get to meet interesting people, you learn new things, you spend time away from the office and your computer, you get a physical workout. But all of this is about you.

And that’s okay. We can be selfish at times. Just be honest enough to admit that you volunteer for your own benefit and enjoyment.

Because if you truly want to make a difference, there are smarter ways than doing it yourself.

Unless you change your own career path to become a change maker - our planet definitely needs more of them.

The biggest con of volunteering

“It’s for a good cause, so I don’t want to charge for it.”, volunteers often say.

And that’s a major problem.

Because it

1. Decreases the perceived value (it’s free - so it can’t be worth much)
2. It fosters the expectation that all things done for a good cause should be done for free.
3. Nullifies the interest of capitalistically driven people and companies to invest into these highly important causes. It’s free - so no way to generate a positive ROI, right?

I’ve never heard a tax advisor state “Oh, don’t worry about payment, I’ll work for free - I’m really just in it for my own enjoyment.” I’m also yet to find a lawyer who consistently offers me advice without charging for it. Or a banker who rather thinks about my actual benefit instead of his own commission.

And that’s okay. They invest their time and expertise - so they should get remunerated.

The one thing I wonder: Why would you expect people to plant trees for free, rescue animals without pay, build schools at no charge, dig wells or feed unfortunate people without remuneration?

Because it’s their hobby? Because their remuneration is the satisfying feeling of doing good? Because they’re all socialists and that’s what they do?

Maybe it is their hobby. And yes, doing good does feel good. But wouldn’t it be great if especially those who help protect our planet and make it a better place for all of its inhabitants were the ones being majorly remunerated?

What do you think how many people that’d lead to help make more impact?

Or am I overlooking something here? I’d love to read your thoughts below in the comments!

Links

In case you’re into trees: Here is why planting trees in the tropics makes a much bigger impact than planting e.g. in Western Europe or North America: https://clickatree.com/en/stories/why-we-plant-trees-in-the-tropics

Keen to make a ton of impact? Involve yourself and/or your company with Click A Tree - it serves all 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. Set up your personalized impact account in 87 seconds on https://clickatree.com/de/create-account - no credit card needed.

Just for fun

Nobody said making impact needs to be all serious at all times.

Let’s add some fun to this. (And please post your favorite memes & jokes in the comments - a good laugh has lots of positive impact!)

Acknowledgements

Special? thanks to Rolf Dobelli. His eye-opening book “The Art of Thinking Clearly” is an absolute must-read. (It’s not the last time you’ll see this book referenced in this newsletter.)

Image credits go to Robert Seale . Thanks for the cool Chuck Norris photo! I found it on https://www.houstoniamag.com/news-and-city-life/2016/12/chuck-norris-c-force-bottled-water