My Time vs. Their Time
I had an epiphany shortly after hiring my first assistant. Her name is Paige, and she's pretty awesome. If I remember correctly, she was only 19 years old at the time, but I always perceived her as far wiser than her age. When it came time for me to pay her after the first month, I asked her to submit her hours. I reviewed her log and felt thoroughly confused. "Paige, I don't think you gave me all your hours."
She confirmed that, yes, all hours were included. When I shared that it felt like she did far more work than that, she gave me the most Paige response ever: "It just takes you three times as long to do these tasks as it does me."
Ouch! But she was right! My objective in hiring Paige was to offload the tasks that I hate and/or suck at. Turns out, those tasks fell in line with what she enjoyed and was good at. Thus, she was far more efficient than I could ever dream of being. She consistently performed tasks at roughly 1/3 the time it would have taken me.
This is where my epiphany came in. The hourly rate I was paying her was more about my time than her time. For example, let's say I was paying Paige $30/hour. While that was the sticker price for her time, the real cost for Paige's services was $10/hour of my time. If I paid her $30 for one hour of her time that would have taken me three hours to perform, I was only paying $10/hour for the time I was buying back.
This line of thinking is applied to every aspect of my life. I don't care what the total cost or cost per hour for a service is. Instead, I ask myself how much it costs in relation to my time. Oil changes are a good example. I could easily change the oil in my car and save a bunch of money. However, by the time I buy oil and filters, successfully (eventually) drive my car up the ramps, empty the oil, change the filter, pour in the new oil, check the oil level, and finish topping it off, the actual cost savings per hour of my time is very low. Translation: That expensive oil change service is extremely cheap.
Just think of the possibilities with this concept. How many decisions would you make differently if you framed them through this lens? Plumbing, carpentry, electrical, landscaping, mechanical work, cleaning, laundry......the list could go on forever. Now, I'm not suggesting we should contract out every single task in our lives. Rather, I encourage you to look at your own personal situation through the lens of how much something costs/saves per hour of YOUR time, and see where the chips fall.
Warning: This way of thinking might just change everything.
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