What’s perishable, never carries over a balance, allows no overdrafts and is often wasted? Did I hear someone say Time? Bingo! Time is your most valuable commodity. You never seem to have enough of it. Everyone is time-strapped, time-poor, time-starved. Choose your cliché. As we measure the durations of events and the intervals between them, we must realize we all have 86,400 seconds in each day, we must learn to manage them well to achieve our goals. I would venture to say that if each one of your seconds were a dollar that you had to spend in a day, you would invest a little wiser and look for some sort of return on each of those seconds.
The U.S. Mint prints about $600 Million dollars daily. I have yet to find a “Time” Factory that allows you to purchase more time. Why don’t you value time as you do any other good or service? Maybe because you think you have an abundance of it. Similar to lottery winners who didn’t have to work for the money think the well will never run dry until it does. I believe the same thing happens with time. You think you have enough to blow, but in reality we don’t.
You can reallocate time, but you can’t increase your supply. You can shop for food rather than grow it yourself (or order in dinner rather than cook), using the time you save to undertake higher-value activities that will let you pay for outsourcing to have the task completed.
Once I determined my hourly rate, I stopped doing certain things. For example, if my hourly rate is $100 and I watch 3 hours of TV a day, I’m losing $300/day. The people on TV are getting paid to be there and I’m losing…so I rarely watch TV. I no longer cut my grass, because I can pay someone $25 to cut my lawn…I win by doing that. Now if I enjoyed cutting the lawn it could be my outlet therefore makes sense to still do it. As S. Eliot put it, “Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.”
Many of us have settled for whatever we’ve been offered, thinking that’s all we could get. The truth is, if you bargain with life for a penny that’s what you’ll get in return. If you don’t know your own worth you can expect anyone to pay you what you truly deserve because you don’t even know what to ask for.
Here are a few steps to help you become a better Time Manager:
1.Create a Time Block (Download on my site)
2.Determine your rate. (if hourly…you know it. If salary divide by 12 and once again by the number of hours you work a month (true number).
3.Remain conscious of the time it takes you to complete task and how you’re spending your time.
Not only is knowing your real hourly wage useful in terms of budgeting both your time and money, but it’s also a great tool for comparing prospective opportunities. Time management is a key element of a calm mindset. When you know what’ s expected of you and when, you’ re better able to plan for and address every need. Remember that time is more valuable than money, invest it wisely.
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