Do you believe your time is valuable? You probably will say yes. However, if you really do believe this then I have a really powerful question for you – just how valuable is it? Can you measure the value of your time?
Most likely you cannot and because of that you really do not value your time. How can you possibly consider something valuable if you do not know what it is worth? Let me give an example. I have a boat in San Diego. It is not very valuable, however, if someone were to offer me money for it, I would know exactly how much to accept for it. I know what I have put into the boat, and I know how much value that I get out of it. I can quantify that pretty easily. The boat itself is not worth that much, but the value that I attribute to it is higher than its current appraisal value. This for many reasons, but for the most part it is due to the time we spend on it as a family. So this has value to me and I know exactly what that is worth to me and how much I would be willing to accept to transfer that value.
So that brings me back to time. If someone asks for your time, do you know what value you are willing to transfer to give them that time? Theoretically, your employer is currently paying you for your time. Assume you were making 100,000 a year. If you worked the mythical hours in a year of 2,080, then an hour of your time is effectively worth $48 dollars an hour and some change. That is how much value you are willing to transfer to give up your time. You will then casually tell people that time with your children is precious. However, you will then work an extra hour or two a week. So if you worked 1 hour extra per day for a full year on that same 100,000 per year, you are actually devaluing your time. You are effectively dropping your hourly value to $43.74 per hour. So, huge guilt here, you are valuing the time spent away from your kids at less than $50 per hour because that is what you are taking in trade for the transfer.
You actually do accept value for time frequently. You spend a lot of time in your house, well how much do you pay for that in total? Divide that by the time spend. How much time do you spend in your car versus what you are paying for it? How much do you really value your time? Think of it, we always say that our time is precious, but is it really? We accept money for our time frequently. How much are you valuing your time at?
Now here is the real butt kicker of a question. How much do other people value your time for? That is the painful question. You may think your time is valued at one amount, but you are only going to get what other people will pay for it. So that is an interesting dilemma isn’t it? Is that not the real tough realization that we all have to cope with? People are only going to transfer money to you in exchange for the value of your time that they believe they are going to get. Makes you think long and hard about asking for a raise, or complaining that your job does not pay enough. Before you throw those thoughts around, you had better be darned sure that the value you are bringing is worth the time that the other party is paying for. If you cannot prove that out, then you might as well forget asking for more compensation for time that is not valued very highly.
Of course the reverse is true as well. If your time is highly valued, please, please, do not give it away at no transfer of value! You are effectively devaluing yourself! If your time is valued by others at a high transfer rate, then you should trade it like a precious commodity, not free for the taking at anytime.
Guy Reams
