How much is your time worth?

Have you ever considered your "energy score" for the tasks you do each day?

This is a great exercise I learned from Andre Abi Awad and one that I encourage every business owner to do, especially those who are unsure about the thought of hiring another person to take over some of their smaller tasks.

So, what do you do?

First, as always, you list out the tasks you do each month. Next to that indicate the number of hours it takes to complete each task. And next to that note down the “Energy Score” for each task on a scale of 1 to 10.

Energy Score refers to how energized you feel about each task - how eager are you to do it, or how much do you dread doing it?

You have three options for anything on your table that scores below an Energy Score of 8:

1. Automate
2. Outsource
3. Delegate

Do you know the value of your time?

But the commonality amongst many of those who are hesitant to hire additional assistance for these tasks is that they do not truly understand the value of their time.

So it’s time to figure that out.

Here's a question to ask yourself:

If you were to hire someone to do what you’re doing now, how much are you willing to pay them?

Be honest with yourself.

When you hire someone in business you generally hope to generate 5x their salary.

Multiply your ‘hourly rate’ from the previous question by 5, and now you have your true value.

That doesn’t mean to say that you need to pay someone the value you generated in the second question, it simply shows you just how valuable your time really is.

Free up your time by outsourcing, delegating or automating

You will quite easily find qualified, capable people who can take on your outsourceable, delegatable tasks for far less than what you are essentially paying in time to do them yourself.

And once you have freed up that time in your month, invest one-third of it back into your personal life - your relationships, your creative outlets, your passions - so that you can come back to your business refreshed, inspired, and ready to continue working on your high Energy Score, high-value activities.

Always remember that time isn’t money, in fact, it is more valuable than money. Once you spend your money you can always make more, but once you spend your time, it is gone forever.

Consider these thoughts about time

• Time is your biggest asset, even more than money. If you lose some money, you always have the opportunity to make it back. Not so with time. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
• Think of time as if it were money. You want to maximize return on your investment. Invest at least 20% of your time on things that are important but not urgent.
• Time is the most even playing field on the planet. We all have as much as there is and no one gets more or less. It’s true, that there is never enough time for everything, but always enough time for those activities that are most important to us.
• We can’t manage time. We can only manage the activities we choose to put into our time.
• We like to do what we’re good at and the average person spends a tremendous amount of time and energy avoiding activities they aren’t good at or don’t like to do.
• In order to understand our priorities we must first have compelling goals, targets, or outcomes we are aiming for. These may flow from our job descriptions, a strategic plan, our sense of purpose or some form of vision we have for our business or our life.
• "Prioritizing is the answer to time management problems - not computers, efficiency experts, or matrix scheduling. You do not need to do work faster or to eliminate gaps in productivity to make better use of your time. You need to spend more time on the right things."
• Prioritizing is all about making choices: What to do…What not to do.  To effectively prioritize your day, you need to recognize what is important, as well as, to see the difference between urgent and important.