How much is your time really worth?

Have you ever taken a moment and thought about what your time is really worth?  Have you calculated your earning capacity on an hourly basis?  It can be a great exercise in determining your worth, relative value and earning contribution.  It can also tell you how much each hour you allow to be wasted is really costing you.

Let's figure it out together.  Assuming 52, 5-day weeks in a year.  We will deduct 2, 5-day weeks for normal vacation time. This leaves us 250 days.  Then, let's deduct the holidays.  In BC, we have 10 per year.  This will leave us with only 240 work days in which to earn our money. Assuming an average 8-hour workday this gives us 1820 potential work hours in a year.

On the surface we'd simply take our Gross Pay and divide by the hours, e.g. $30,000/year would give us an average hourly rate of $16.48 per hour.  So in this instance each 15-minute block of recaptured or wasted time would be costing you $4.12

Let's take this a bit further, shall we?  In all honesty, would you say that you are able to get 8 productive hours in each 8-hour day?  If you are in sales how much of your time is spent selling, or servicing your clients?  

My contention, based on feedback from quite a few of our North American audience members is the 'true number' is somewhere closer to 60% effectiveness on any given day.  If that is true, then we really have only 1092 work hours in which to make our money.  In the example above, each hour would now be worth $27.47 and each 15-minute block costing us $6.86.

I'll give you some rough comparisons in our table for different dollar levels.

Annual Rate	Base Rate	Effective Rate (60%)	15 minute block	
20,000/year	10.98	18.32	4.58	
25,000/year	13.74	22.89	5.72	
30,000/year	16.48	27.47	6.86	
35,000/year	19.23	32.05	8.01	
40,000/year	21.97	36.63	9.16	
45,000/year	24.72	41.21	10.30	
50,000/year	27.47	45.78	11.45	
  
Very interesting figures aren't they? If you are aware of what your time is 'really' worth it will help you keep an eye on the time wasters that creep into your life.  Not that I put a monetary price on everything in my life; but it is good to know what my 'investment' is worth.

After my dad died, I spent quite a lot of time with my mom before she passed away.  It was probably the best return for my investment I've every made - priceless!  I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I could.

Copyright 2000 All rights reserved. Bob 'Idea Man' Hooey, CKD is the author of 5 books including (Secrets of Effective Customer Service, Prepare Yourself to WIN!), and one of only 48 Internationally Accredited Professional Speakers. His articles to enhance productivity have appeared in local and North American trade journals and consumer publications. His free, online 'zine, Ideas@work can be subscribed by visiting his site at: http://www.ideaman.net Bob is the President of the BC Chapter - Canadian Association of Professional Speakers