Time is Money
Posted On: 2011-08-05
(Insert major cry of frustration here) Damn, damn, damn, damn ... I started this morning with lots of great intentions ... and six hours later I have achieved precisely ZIP!
I had a nice little list written out that showed me all the things that I want to achieve today and all the wheels fell right off when I hit the second item on the list ... something as simple as adding a partner button to our mainstream business site.
Oh I had no problems adding the button but then I noticed that there was an issue in the CSS and there was a little extra white space showing at the bottom of the page. That's just a five second fix ... or so I thought ... and five hours later I'm still fiddling with the CSS trying to make it all work.
Maybe it's time for a complete redesign for the business site ... at least that way I don't have to go on fiddling with the style sheet that just doesn't want to co-operate. If I start afresh then all I have to do is kill the old style sheet and build a completely new one.
And right there I've fallen into a major trap that so many webmasters fall into. If I had killed that style sheet right at the start and just written a completely new one it might have taken me a couple of hours ... instead I've wasted five hours on the damn thing and I have absolutely nothing to show for all that time.
If my time is worth $100 an hour I've just blown $500 and not got one ounce of pleasure out of it.
When you start putting dollar values on the hours you waste each day it can become quite scary. Steve diddled around yesterday for three hours while he tried to get focused on something and for about the same length of time I struggled to get an e-commerce content management system to do what I wanted it to do.
So there in just two days we've blown over $1,000 and achieved ... not much.
Scary isn't it? It doesn't seem like such a big deal when you're actually trying to do whatever it is that's just not working ... but the clock and the cash register are ticking and if you're self-employed and you're wasting time and not making any money it really is a big deal ... a VERY big deal.
So just for a bit of fun put a dollar value on an hour of your time. Maybe you don't think you're worth $100.00 an hour, so don't get carried away by your delusions. Instead be realistic when you're assessing what an hour of your work time is really worth.
Now you know what an hour of your time is worth start adding up all the work time you've wasted today. Think about all those little five minute breaks you've taken to skip over to Facebook or your favorite webmaster board ... add in all those minutes you've spent gazing out the window today ... don't forget the time you spent admiring all those naked babes in the images you've put into your galleries and free sites either ... it all adds up.
So how much time have you wasted today? Now multiply it by the hourly rate that you thought your time was worth ... how scary is that number to the right of the $ sign?
Of course not every minute that you spend looking at the content you're using ... gazing out the window ... or hitting Facebook or your favorite webmaster board ... is wasted time. We all need to take regular breaks ... we all need to spend time letting our subconscious do it's work ... but there has to be a limit on that time or otherwise the time we spend actually making money becomes far less than the time we waste.
When the time you waste surpasses the time you spend making money you're on a slippery slope that will end up with you landing in a heap with no money to cover your bills.
Of course that doesn't happen immediately ... time wasted now may not show up in your bottom line for weeks but eventually it will have an impact there. So don't get lulled into a false sense of security where think that it's ok to waste time because you're still making money even though you may not be putting all your effort into your work.
Instead be aware of the trap that you can fall into if you go on wasting valuable time ... it's a trap that's hard to get out of and it's a trap that will eventually destroy you.
Always remember that time is money and every hour you waste represents a lot of money that you will never recover.