How do successful business owners value their time?

Business coach Rob Carter asks the question – how do successful business owners value their time?

It’s really easy for us all to come out with profanities such as, ‘Time is your most precious commodity’ or ‘You can’t manage time, you can only manage yourself’ – so why are the majority of us absolutely rubbish at valuing our time?

Well, the answer to that question is that business owners don’t actually think about putting a value on their time which is one of the key reasons why they are running around like headless chickens and being all things to all people.

Here’s my top 3 tips on how to value your time….

Time yourself

Put a number on it by working out what your hourly rate is so that you can get some context for all that you do.

Please do not just take your current salary and divide it by the number of hours you work as this will only get you more of what you are wanting to move away from.

Instead, think what you want to be earning from your business in 5 years time, knock off the three noughts and then divide that number by 2.

For example, if you want to be earning £150,000 a year in five years, that will mean you have an hourly rate of £75.

£150,000 less three noughts equals £150, divided by 2, equals £75.

When you’ve got this number, it makes it a lot easier to understand the futility of you doing a £10 an hour task in your business!

Assess what you do

Track what it is you actually do. Yes, this is likely to be uncomfortable!

Those of my clients who like some detail, actually spent their first three weeks tracking what they were doing every fifteen minutes and then analysing the summary to see what they could adjust going forward.

Those of you who don’t like so much detail can cheat by doing a rough analysis a couple of time a day and then doing your analysis.

Use the hourly rate that you have just calculated to understand whether it’s better for you to do a task or to work out how to delegate it to someone else either in your business or outside of it.

For example, I have a client who is the Managing Director of a business with a turnover around £5 million, who was actually spending 20 hours a week processing purchase ledger invoices.

He was doing this because he felt that he was the only person who could do this properly as it involved quite a high value.

With some recruitment and training, this task is now done at a rate of £10 per hour which has enabled my client to have the time to turn his business into significant profit making from a breakeven situation.

Have a plan

We are all bombarded with so many opportunities and distractions that it really is difficult to sort out the wheat from the chaff at times.

If you have a clear plan of what you want to achieve which includes a 12 month goal that is then broken down into 90 day chunks then it is so much easier to prioritise.

Make the goals SMART – ie Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely – and you will avoid falling into the trap that most business owners do which is to have goals that are vague and open ended.

Success equals clarity

The most successful business owners have got great clarity over how they value their time and hence how they invest it.

You have the same amount of time available as the wealthiest person on the planet – use it wisely….