Assigning value to your time.

It’s all well and good to say that your time is valuable but how much is it actually worth? Unfortunately, it’s not enough to say “a lot” instead you need to translate it into a hard monetary value (reflected in the fees for your services or prices for your products). Failure to do this and you’ll end up overworked and underpaid.

All decisions related to focus, priority, task delegation and outsourcing will be much harder to make. One approach to getting to that number is to work out how much your time is currently worth by dividing your average weekly income by the number of hours you work a week. With that number at hand, you’ll have one of the clearest indications you could hope for as to whether you’re making a decent living based on the amount of time you work. You might find it helpful to compare your new-found ‘wage’ to the wages of employed job roles equivalent to what you do – if you run a dog grooming business are you making more, less or the same as an employed dog groomer on a steady wage?

It’s not what you expected.

If the monetary time value you come up with is far below expectations — what should you do? The knee-jerk reaction is often to put in even more time, keeping your business open for longer, or taking on additional work. We would warn against this. No one, including the self-employed, should be working to the point that they have to sacrifice all their personal time. Tiredness and stress are quick paths to failure (mistakes, bad judgement) will always cost you money in the long term.

Prioritise revenue generating tasks. 

Instead fix things by identifying which tasks directly link to revenue generation and which don’t. Is your time directly contributing to the work you charge for? If you’re working on things that don’t directly change the bottom line it’s time to drop or delegate. Indirect revenue generating tasks are important but not if they stop you from direct revenue generation tasks (the important stuff). 

Spending money to free up more time i.e hiring an assistant/pa is not the intuitive thing to do but it’s the only way to become a person of value. An accountant is another example of delegation, let them handle your statutory accounting and tax tasks so you can focus on what matters most. Next, if you realise you’re not getting enough for the hours you put in, consider increasing what you charge. This might come as a shock for some long-term clients and customers, and it may even mean some clients leave, but the ones who stay are finally paying a fair fee.

Stay focused.

In business things are always changing and there will be times (because you’re a go getter) to jump onto tasks that may not be worth of your time. You hire more employees and suddenly you’re spending time on payroll. You read an article on growth and marketing and suddenly you’re writing content. The important thing to bear in mind is that whatever new challenge crops up on your business journey, you need to keep asking yourself: ‘is this a good use of my time and should I delegate it so I can focus on on revenue generation?’

Our personal recommendation (in most cases) is to focus on moving low-value work off your plate. That might not always mean hiring someone, sometimes it could simply be a case of working smarter. Schedule and scrutinise your week and make sure you stick to it!

Technology saves time.

Technology is a great way to do more in less time. As accountants many of our clients use cloud accounting platforms like Xero or Sage. These technologies allow you to automate, simplify and support key decision making processes with data. Many of our clients mention how going cloud saves them communication time with us – no more emailing back and forth, no more searching for financial records. Instead everything is right there on the cloud for both of us to see.

We believe your time is valuable, and promise not to waste it. Get in touch with us for a range of fantastic services today.