Time Management

I attended a wonderful seminar yesterday by Brian Tracy called “Maximum Achievements”. There were many take aways, but one of the simplest, yet profound, was a rule about time management. The rule is this.

“If you would not pay someone else to do something – don’t do it yourself”.

Think about this. If the task is not worth paying for, then you are losing money. For sake of simplicity, assume that your income is $50,000. Doing the math this translates to $25 per hour. If you spend an hour on a non-productive task, you have just blown $25.00. Taking this a step further, if you delegate a needed task to someone else, you have freed up the time for yourself, and can probably pay someone else less than your own hourly rate – you are now ahead.

Several months ago I had lunch with a friend who has a home-based business with no employees. She commented how she hates to file and do routine office tasks. We decided that she should hire a part time person to do the things she dislikes. Not only would she be relieved of drudge work, but she would be money ahead. Her billing rate is about $150 per hour – she could easily hire a part time person for ten percent of that amount.

How are you spending your time?

Will Limkemann