Monetizing Your Time the Effective and Smart Way
Many times throughout the course of your life you have likely heard someone say that there simply are not enough hours in the day. Between work, home, kids, family, marriage and a social life, most people spend their days rushing from point A to point B and everywhere in between so that they can do everything they want and need to do and still find a few hours to brush their teeth, shower and get some sleep. In reality, people are overextending themselves; but they won’t likely stop anytime soon so that means they need to learn what it is to really value their time.
Many people, especially those who work at home or for themselves, find that they monetize their time. What that means is that they always think about how much money it is costing them to do something other than work. For example, a freelance writer may make around $35 per hour writing from home. Each time a friend asks her to go to lunch or attend a charity event with her, she thinks about the $70 it will cost her to attend that function rather than stay home and write. While this is a great business minded way of thinking, it is not always productive. Experts say that it is detrimental to put a price on precious time with loved ones and that while monetizing your time is great for business, it is awful for your personal life.
When to Monetize Your Time
There is a time and a place for monetizing your time. Thinking that taking your kids to a birthday party for their best friend will cost you whatever it is you make in three hours is not the time to consider this. When it comes to monetizing your time, you need to make some considerations. Say your favorite store is having a huge sale and you want to buy several items, but that store is located 30 minutes from your house. You know you can find everything you want online because it’s organized and easy, whereas the store may have things located all over the place.
It will take you a half hour to drive to the store, another hour to shop, several minutes to check out and another half hour to drive home. Or you could just buy everything online; except that you hate to pay for shipping. You can spend more than two hours shopping in person or you can spend 20 minutes doing it online and an extra $12 on shipping. By the time you drive to the store, you’ve already used a few gallons of gas, which may or may not make up for the shipping you could have purchased. This is the time to consider monetizing your time. Two hours to save $12 is not going to be worth what you will lose by not working for those two hours if you can do the same thing from your computer that you can do in the store.
Avoiding Anxiety
When you make it a habit to monetize your time away from your desk, you will start to view life’s little moments as annoyances that cost you money and you will no longer derive pleasure from them and they will start to cause you anxiety. It is perfectly fine to take time away from work to enjoy your birthday or your kid’s school play or time with friends. Vacationing is important. Figuring out what is really worth your time and what is not is the easiest way to decide how to monetize your time. If your lawn needs mowing and takes an hour, an hour in which you could make $70 at work, and a lawn service costs $30, hire the lawn service. It saves money and time. Nothing that is not pleasurable and fun is worth your time if you can pay someone else to do it for you for less money than you will make while working; that is when you monetize your time.
Saving money, spending your money wisely and building your financial discipline is fundamental to financial success in the long run.
