Be More Successful When You Value Your Time
Time is the one thing we all have in common. From the moment we are born, the clock of our lives starts ticking. 86,400 seconds, or 288 X 5 minute blocks, or 1440 minutes, or 24 hours in a day; ultimately, the only thing that varies, from person to person, is how we use it.
Consider that you have the same amount of time as Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson or the late Nelson Mandela. What sets them apart from you? The answer is simply that people who are high achievers set a different value on their time than those who struggle to obtain an objective.
Consider this – a millionaire, working forty hours per week, has a time valued at $500 per hour. Someone making $10,000,000 per year has a time value of $5000 per hour.
A billionaire has a time value of $500,000 per hour. If your time was worth $500,000 per hour, do you think you would waste it watching every kitten video on YouTubeTM? Of course not.
When you learn to value your time, you will likely be more successful faster and more easily.
The difference between the world’s millionaires and billionaires and those that struggle financially is that they have a greater appreciation of the value of their time.
We want to value our time as a millionaire would before we actually get there. In doing this, we fully understand that every wasted minute is costing us $8.33!
Therefore, if we spend fifteen minutes on the phone with a person who wants to share the latest gossip, it just cost us $125! I highly doubt that Warren Buffet, who made $25,694 per minute in 2013, wasted time during his production hours, tooling around Facebook or looking for games to play.
Be more successful by teaching others how to treat you.
The bottom line is this – we teach the world how to treat us, and if you are feeling that people take advantage of you, then stop blaming the people and start looking in the mirror. Your time may be worth $8.33 an hour right now; however, the moment you start managing yourself in time like the millionaires and billionaires of the world, you just might become one.
Consider that we all have the same twenty-four hours; it is what we do with them, or specifically what we choose not to do with them, that creates the results we achieve.
Be more successful when you stop wasting your time.
If you are going to get serious about taking control of YOUR precious time, then you need to figure out where you are wasting time and where you are being efficient. Here are a few thoughts to help to make the determination of which things are time wasters:
Analyze Your Day –
How often do we go through our days on ‘autopilot?’ We get up, we go through the motions of our lives, and at the end of the day, we end up feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, as though we didn’t accomplish anything.
One of the greatest personal development exercises we can ever do is to write down everything we do in a day. To truly create more work-life balance, productivity, and results in our lives, we must be willing to go under the microscope and analyze our activities. Are we doing the things that produce the outcomes we desire, or are we wasting time?
Write It Out –
Stop reading right here and write down everything you did yesterday. Include things such as brushing your teeth, making the bed, having breakfast, social media, details about what you did with work, etc.
It does not have to be chronological—just get it down on paper. If you are going to get an accurate idea of what your days actually look like and truly be honest about it, then get it in writing.
Assign A Value To Your Activities –
There are three types of actions we take in a day…Â 1) Those that move us toward our dreams. 2) Those that take us away from our dreams. 3) Those that allow us to dream.
Beside each activity write ‘1, 2 or 3.’ Take a good look at what you have down. Is there a predominant number? You may be saying, ‘Susan, I changed diapers yesterday – how is that a 1,2 or 3?’
The truth is that at some point you dreamed of having this child even if it wasn’t planned. By changing diapers, you are living into your dream of raising a healthy, strong individual. Eating healthy food, as an example, takes us toward our dream of living into a fit, lean body.
Eating junk food, on the other hand, takes us away from that dream. As you go through this exercise, something I want you to truly grasp is this – people who are successful do very few things that take them away from the life they want to create.
Make a Determination –
Take a look at your numbers – I mean really take a look. Are you wasting time? Are you doing things that sabotage your success? If this is the case, then understand that you have the power to change; you have the inherent ability to shift what you do in your day, and I want you to start right now. Figure out which things are taking you farther from your dreams and goals. Make a decision to eliminate, or find substitutions for, the activities that are not promoting your success.
Make Your ‘Dream Building’ List –
Write down five essential things that you know bring you closer to your dreams, whether you did them yesterday or not. For example, if I am in sales, then making connections with potential clients is an essential activity.
Exercise is something that is essential to all of us; it brings us closer to a healthy, balanced life – it is definitely one of these five. Spending quality time with our loved ones may also be on your essential list. Getting seven hours of quality sleep may also be there. These five essential things will start to make up the foundation of your day, so choose wisely.
You can truly be more successful, live into optimal health, create more fulfilling relationships and experience a stronger financial fortress by making better choices.
Change often takes time to sink in, and at first, it may be tempting to reach for the pint of ice cream after the kids have gone to bed or drink the bottle of wine instead of going to the gym; however, as you eventually live into more dream building activities, you will become addicted to better results, and those dream stealing activities of the past will slowly fade from memory.
Susan Sly is a best selling author, work life balance expert, speaker and entrepreneur. She has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox, Lifetime Television and the CBN. Susan is the mother of five children and resides in Scottsdale, Arizona.
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