Your time is worth more than you think. I value mine at $1,000 an hour.

How to think through wasting time and how to fix it

I mowed lawns in high school. It was gritty but also put more cash in my pocket than my buddies’ gigs waiting tables or working at pawn shops. I’d pocket about $20 to $30 an hour, depending on the yard and the client—plenty of cash for some gas, tacos and new records.

That was 20 years ago. Today I think of my hourly rate as 50X that of my lawn manicure days. A recent battle with my own lawn mower reminded me of the importance and value of time.

Today I’m breaking down why you need to significantly multiply your value, too.

Pricing your time is a funny thing—don’t laugh

One can only spend so much on bad Mexican food and albums, so despite my best efforts to blow my hard-earned cash on Foo Fighter memorabilia, I had saved up a nice little nest egg of about $3,000 rolling into college.

I spent it all in the first 30 days on one item.

I was a freshman at the University of Kentucky in the fall of 2005. I wanted to become a journalist, and I was desperately trying to get a job at the student newspaper. The paper, the Kentucky Kernel, was considered one of the best in the country. I applied eight times to become a writer and never heard back.

Finally, I went to the newspaper in person and found out that they were drowning in applicants for writers, but no one was applying to be a photographer because the gear was too expensive. I didn’t ask anything else, and I applied to be a photographer. I left the newspaper office, and spent all of my savings on my first professional camera.

Within the week, I was on the staff.

I started picking up small assignments, and it wasn’t long before I had someone ask me to do my first commercial gig. I had no clue what I was worth, so I turned to my mentor.

David LaBelle was the photo advisor for the newspaper, and for several years mentored me. Dave was widely regarded as one of the best photography teachers in the country, which is why I followed him to California my sophomore year for an internship at a photography startup.

I remember scrambling into Dave’s office and telling him I had a gig, but I had no idea how much to charge. “What do I do?” I said, frantically.

I will never forget Dave telling me with a straight face:

“As much as you can say without laughing.”

This was an hour of work. At 18 years old, I called the client back and said I would do the gig for $75—more than three times what I was charging for mowing lawns a few months prior. It seemed insane.

I got the gig.

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Full circle

A few weeks ago, my lawn mower died. I knew why. My Briggs and Stratton motor had not airlifted to that greasy graveyard in the sky. No, it needed a carb clean, gas tank clean, new air filter, and the muffler seemed to be clinging to life, just waiting for the right place in the yard to make its jump.

I knew the diagnosis and prognosis. I also knew that paying someone $120 was going to be worth it to me so I could spend my time on something else.

Let me be clear—I really enjoy DIY projects. I’ll resurface my deck, replace the garbage disposal or put in a new sink sometimes. But years ago one of my board members, Bruce, told me something that has completely changed my life.

“Brad, you have to start valuing your time. You’re a leader. You’re worth $1,000 an hour. You need to get that into your head, and it will help you prioritize much better.”

All of the sudden me spending 3 hours finding parts and fixing a cheap lawn mower sounds insane. You’re talking about $3,000 vs. $120 for someone else to take care of it.

I don’t apply this to everything—three hours of watching my kid play baseball isn’t three grand, it’s priceless. But still, this valuation of my time has become a really good filter for me.

Last year, I had a plumbing task that was fairly simple, but I just didn’t have time to deal with it. I called a plumber and he was going to charge me a fortune for something I could do in an hour. He also wanted a subscription, which made me think we’re living in the future.

Brad, WTF are you talking about?

OK, mowing lawns is different from challenges we all face at work (unless you’re a professional landscape artist, in which case this is perfectly relevant), but it conveys my point perfectly.

Ready to get to the point?

No matter the stage of your business or your level of management, you’re probably spending your time on a bunch of BS.

Still not sure? Tell me, does this sound familiar?

Recently, have you pondered:

• Spending less than $100 per month for a SaaS product that would save you 2-10 hours of work per month?
• Whether or not a SaaS product that would make you twice as efficient was worth it, even though it was less than $50?
• Struggled to decide if that virtual assistant was worth it at $30/hour.

This list goes on and on, but I will tell you right now—all of these things are likely worth the money if they’re good products and giving you time back.

In general, when people are wrestling with these kinds of questions, they don’t know their own value. No one has ever told them that what they create valuable, the time they spend doing it is valuable.

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If that’s you, let me be that person for you—your time has value.

I do not care if you’re a banker, hair stylist, CPA, UX designer, yoga instructor, line cook or one of those guys who twirls the sign around to draw attention for a boss who doesn’t understand marketing—your time matters.

Put a price on it. Maybe it’s not $1,000, but I promise you, it’s more than you think it is. If you’re billing $75 an hour for your work, just realize that is a process you’ve mastered. You’re probably worth more than that, and you should start prioritizing your life by filtering out the BS tasks by doubling that hourly rate in your head. It’ll better optimize your use of your time, and better monetize your working hours.

And finally, please realize that not all work is created equally. Those SaaS products that are saving you time on the monotonous daily tasks we all hate? They’re worth it, because these necessary evils often do not move the needle a bit.

Outsource the monotony, focus on the nuance.

When you learn to think like this, and to really embrace it, you’ll turn down engagement or speaking opportunities that didn’t matter to start with. You’ll give quotes for side projects that were previously a pointless distraction, until one lands and makes it worth your time. But most importantly, you’re going to finally realize that time is your most valuable asset and you’re going to invest it in yourself.

3 steps to multiplying the value of your time

1. Document your time. Spend two weeks documenting where you’re spending your time every day. Set two daily reminders at 12:30 pm and 6 pm to document what you’ve worked on each hour of the day. Be honest and do not change your schedule because you know you’ll be documenting it.
2. Review and outsource. After two weeks, review your notes and see if you can find any trends. Bucket those trends and ask yourself if these buckets can be outsourced or delegated at all. Too many leaders hoard tasks that should be delegated or outsourced.
3. Value your time. You have to come up with a value of your time. If you have a billable time, multiply that rate by 2. The multiple accounts for inefficiencies in spur-of-the-moment tasks that don’t benefit from a normal day-to-day process. That’s your new hourly rate to use when deciding what your time is worth for tasks outside of your actual expertise. When spontaneous tasks or opportunities to outsource arise, measure against your hourly.

You made it this far. That’s it. This is the end. Why not share this on LinkedIn?

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