The Value of Time
By Ben Tyler, Owner and Head Coach
Time is valuable; for most of us, there just never seems to be enough of it. Personally, there are many times where I have far more things vying for my time than I’m capable of taking on,.Try as I might, I can only do so much with the 24 hours a day I’m given.
The question I asked myself recently, which I attribute to the blessing of our five-month-old son Isaiah, immensely enjoying time with Diana and him, and feeling time accelerate at an even faster rate, is: Am I using my time effectively, so that I can make the most difference?
As a Christian, I believe God has placed me on this earth for specific purposes, and I believe it’s my responsibility to manage the time I have wisely so that those purposes can be fulfilled.
A helpful time management skill is to assign a value to each minute of every day. This sounds daunting, but it isn’t that difficult when you look at it from the right perspective and break it down step by step..
Ask yourself the following questions and walk through this process:
How much is my time worth from a monetary standpoint?
Take your job’s compensation and work back into an average hourly rate for your time.
Use this as a starting point for understanding your time’s value.
How much is your time worth from a life standpoint?
“Life’ seems difficult to define, but by starting with the above and understanding the monetary value of your time, you can now view your time with family, friends, and helping others in a different light.
This “life time” should be massively more valuable than your monetary time. If not, take a few minutes to think about the time you get with your family, close friends, or helping others and really consider how much that time makes a real difference in those people’s lives.
Can someone else do the task you are working on better (more effectively, faster, and with higher quality) than you?
There are many incredibly talented people who can do what you may be spending your time on far better than you (difficult as that may be to admit).
Not only can they do it better than you, their quality, and thus the impact they have, will go further. By delegating a task, project, or idea to someone (especially in a business, at work, or other areas of your life at home) who can do it better, you allow them to make a difference by doing what they are gifted at, but you also free up that time to do what you are gifted at as well.
If the answer to the above is yes, decide if you can afford (from a monetary AND a “life time” standpoint) to delegate. If so, let go. Let go of your ego and/or fear, and trust them to do it. What you’ll now be able to see is that person will be able to enjoy using their gift to help others, better than you can, and you’ve helped them by providing the opportunity to do so.
Is the task, project, time on Facebook, movie, conversation worth the time?
This is a harder question, especially since it’s not as cut and dry as the above situations. The time you spend working on other items, and on things like social media, watching TV/movies, etc. are consuming your precious minutes of life. Go back to your “life time” value and be honest with yourself. Is that article , video, meme… (talking to myself!) going to help you help others? Or build a better relationship with your spouse, kids, family, or friends?
If the answer is no, take the first step to simplifying your life and making your time more meaningful to others, and yourself. Cut back on those. Be mindful of your time and minimize time in areas that aren’t adding value to others, or yourself.
There are so many things trying to take our time and attention that it can be overwhelming to think about slowing down. However, slowing down is exactly how you create more time.
Assess where you spend your time, run through the steps above, and enjoy the extra, incredibly fulfilling time with your family, friends, and those you can genuinely make a difference for.
We’re only on this earth for a blink of an eye (James 4:14) in the grand scheme of things, so make the most of the time you’ve been given.