EP 11: How Successful Business Owners Buy Back Their Time
How to Buy Back Your Time Using Two Simple Numbers
For months, our freezer at home kept building up ice from condensation, and about once a week I'd open it up, grab a butter knife, and chip the ice out by hand. I knew exactly how to fix it, call an appliance repair company, but every time I thought about it my brain went straight to finding someone, checking reviews, explaining the problem, scheduling it, paying the bill. Somehow all of that felt like more work than just chipping ice out of a freezer for months.
Looking back, it wasn't that I couldn't afford to fix it. I just didn't want to deal with it.
What Changed Once I Actually Handed It Off?
I hired my assistant, Marge, and one of the first things I gave her was that stupid freezer. I just said, can you please figure this out, and that was it.
She found someone, researched them, made the call, scheduled it, handled the entire thing.
It felt like a tiny hole in my energy bucket finally got plugged.
That's really what Marge does for me now, scheduling, a big chunk of my email, the phone calls nobody wants to make, the freezer, the dentist, sitting on hold for twenty minutes.
Every one of those things she takes off my plate gives me back time and energy I can put toward something that actually moves my business forward, or just gives myself room to rest.
Is This Only About Business Tasks?
No, and this is where it got personal for me.
My mom pointed out that growing up, she didn't do everything herself, she had help around the house several times a week. I'd been shamefully expecting my wife to be superwoman and do it all on her own, and that wasn't fair to her.
Once we sat down and crunched the numbers, we realized we could bring someone in to help run the house, which freed up both of our time for our family, homeschooling, growing the business, and each other.
Handing off low-value work at home has done just as much for us personally as delegation has done for me in the business, because what happens at home affects how you show up at work.
What's Your Own Freezer Moment?
You probably have something right now, a task you know needs to get done, you already know the solution, and you keep putting it off because dealing with it feels like more trouble than the problem itself.
That's exactly why every business owner should know two numbers.
How Do You Calculate Your Time Value?
Take how much you make in a year and divide it by 2,000, roughly 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year.
If you make $200,000 a year, that's $100 an hour.
That's your time value.
How Do You Calculate Your Delegation Number?
Take your time value and divide it by four.
If your time value is $100 an hour, your delegation number is $25 an hour.
Here's where it gets useful: if there's something you're doing that you could pay someone $25 an hour or less to do, why are you doing it?
Opening mail, paying bills, data entry, scheduling, routine phone calls, repetitive admin work, if someone else could do it for $25 an hour, you're using $100-an-hour time on $25-an-hour work.
That's the equivalent of hiring the most expensive doctor in town to mow your lawn. Sure, the doctor can push a lawn mower, but is that really the best use of their time?
What Should You Do With These Two Numbers?
This week, figure out your time value using your personal income, not your business income, divided by 2,000.
Then divide that by four to get your delegation number.
Write both down somewhere you'll actually see them.
Then look at your week, write down what you're doing day to day, and pick one task that falls below your delegation number.
Hand it off, to an assistant, someone already on your team, or someone who could help at home.
It doesn't have to be a full-time hire either. The first person we hired only worked one day a week, and it grew from there.
Every hour you spend on low-value work is an hour you're not spending on the work that actually grows your business, or with the people who actually matter.
You don't have to do everything yourself as some kind of badge of honor. You never did.
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