Do you value your time?

Time one of the most valuable resources we have as individuals.  Of all the resources we have: time, talent, money and people, time is the most important after the people in our lives.

As I teach in Financial Fitness in 90 days, you can lose money and make more money, you can lose a business and build another business, you can lose a house and buy another house, but once your time is gone, it’s gone and you can’t get it back.

That is why you need to guard your time as much as you guard your children.  It is priceless.  Part of making the most of your time is knowing who you are and what your purpose is, this makes it much easier to focus.  Focus your time and energy ( the 5th resource, unseen and too often overlooked) into the one thing you want to accomplish now and watch it happen.

In order to value your time, you need to know yourself and your talents.  But assuming that you know this, then you need to focus in on your purpose and your goals for this season.

Focus on your purpose and Goals for this season.

What do you want to accomplish in the next 3 months?  We have 3 months left of this year, what do you need to do to finish this year strong and make it a great year.  Defy the odds, defy the naysayers.  Don’t listen to the news, there are businesses out there having incredible years.  Some were wiped out in March only to come back fighting stronger than ever in April and May.

When you value your time, you don’t allow others to waste it.  This doesn’t mean working 80 hours a week so you can brag how many hours you put in.  It means spending your time wisely so you have time to spend with your family, you protect your down time, your prayer time, your workout time.

In order to protect your time, you need to know what to say yes to and what to say no to.  That comes from knowing your purpose.

How much are you worth in the market place?

The way to measure whether or not you value your time is to know what your is worth.  How much are you worth in the market place?  Do you know?  If you bill by the hour like an attorney or CPA, you know what your market rate is, but what about the rest of you?  I have all of my financial students calculate this.  This is key to developing your skill set and increasing your worth in the market place.

Do not ask someone to pay more than you are worth.  (Don’t get me started on how artificially raising the minimum wage does not help the people it is intended to help.  In fact, it hurts them because it causes prices to go up.  Not to mention, most people in minimum wage jobs are high school and college students not the head of household) But that’s a different blog.

Increase your worth.  Increase what you bring to the table and then raise your prices.

Value your time before you can ask others to value it.

You MUST value your time before you can have others do the same.  I have two great examples of people not valuing their time.  One is form my own experience and one if from my client.

I hired a website designer to build me a new website.  I paid her a decent price for a beginner.  My expectations were that we would meet once or twice and then she would go design the website and then we would make corrections and the project would be finished.

Her expectations was that we would meet weekly and develop the website together.  I was in the middle of launching a class and time was at a premium.  Needless to say, this did not end well for either of us.  I was frustrated and rather than cancel the project in the middle (which I should have done) I stuck it out to finish it.  Then I threw out the website a week later.  Needless to say I lost the money, my time (20 hours worth) plus the opportunity cost because it took me away form other projects that would have made me money.  Valuable lesson here: I will NEVER make this mistake again.

My other all time classic example of not valuing your time is one of my clients that is a consultant.  He and his wife both run businesses.  He makes really good money.  He bills out at $500-$2000 per hour.  His wife was absolutely upset that the water delivery company wanted 37.50 to deliver water to the firm.  She insisted that someone go to Costco and pick it up.  Crunch the numbers here.  Send her husband to Costco (15 minute drive one was, 15 minutes in the store and a 15 minute drive home) then unload the water or have an employee do it.  Even at 45 minutes, which was the best case scenario and probably closer to one hour.  She was spending $500 to get water delivered instead of $37.50.  The $37.50 was the water and the delivery.  All this so she could save $7.50 on the price of the water.  Does this make sense to anyone reading this?

We humans are pretty silly sometimes.  But the point is, think about how you view your time and money usage.  Change the way you value your time usage.  Your time is valuable.  Nowadays with every thing being delivered and most times for free, we have more time than ever to use for productive and useful things.

But in order to do that, we need to focus on what we should be spending our time on.  We have more time at our disposal than ever before.  Make sure you are using your time on what is important to you.  Make sure your time usage reflects not just your purpose but also your values.  Bingeing on Netflix or Marvel movies is not growing your business or developing yourself.  Yes, you should have time for fun but keep it contained.  Time slips away quickly.  Make sure you are making the most of your time.

Here’s to reaching your goals this 4th quarter and kicking butt in 2020.

Peace, Love & prosperity.

Deborah