Wow, a Lot More Than I Thought
Over the past several weeks either I or my assistant, on several occasions, have been late to our regularly scheduled daily meetings. Most of the time it’s just a few minutes. But there were a couple of times that it was closer to 30 minutes.
It’s not like either of us were just being lazy and chose to be late. In every case there were some miscalculations of the schedule prior or some unexpected situations that came up. We all know that life happens.
Being on time comes down to prioritizing and making decisions accordingly.
I’ve always struggled with giving my time the same level of importance as other peoples. I wouldn’t be late to meetings with customers, committees at church, or in the community. The lack of importance of my own time oozes over to the time of my assistant’s. This is unacceptable.
As I was thinking about this and considering ways to give my time a greater level of importance I came up with an idea. What if there was a monetary penalty for every minute that we were late. Let’s say $1.00 per minute. If I’m late I pay her a dollar and if she’s late she pays me. This caused me to consider…
What each minute of my time is really worth?
So, I did some calculations –
- There are 60 minutes every hour
- There is an average of 12 hours per my workday
- There are 6 workdays per my work week
- There are 52 work weeks per year
- This means there are 224,640 minutes available to work each year
- My gross revenue target for this year is $500,000.00
- $500,000.00 divided by 224640 minutes means that each minute of the workday is worth $2.23
$2.23 for each minute doesn’t seem like that much, until I did some more calculations –
- $2.23 x 5 minutes = $11.15
- $2.23 x 15 minutes = #33.45
- $2.23 x 30 minutes = $66.90
- $2.23 x 60 minutes = $133.80
Who new that my time was that valuable?
It’s amazing how much the little things can change the big picture. This gave me a whole new sense of urgency. It has caused me to evaluate decisions differently. Which of these things on the list is worth spending that much time/money on?
It has caused me to focus more intensely on which actions I need to take to accomplish my mission.
I’ve never been one to give my time the value its worth. Working for myself it’s always hard to give it a monetary value. This new discovery changed that. This weekly solution has cost me $267.60 so far and by the time I find some pictures and get it uploaded it’s going to be closer to $350.00.
I sure hope you find that much value in it. 😊
Of course, everybody’s level of importance is going to be different based on individual preferences. But this new awareness of the value of my time has given me a new focused intensity to spend my time wisely.
So…it looks like the penalty for being late to the meeting is going to be $2.23 per minute.
