Remember one thing:  Your time is always valuable.  Even when it doesn’t feel that way.

In a perfect world, we would all be able to hire out the work that other people can do cheaper and spend our time on the things where we provide the most value.

But in the real world that sometimes doesn’t work out.  We may not have the cash on hand, or we may not be able to find the right person at the right time.

Nevertheless, you should always have an estimate of your “dollar value” in mind.

A lot of your decisions in your business life are based on their expected financial outcomes, both long term and short term.  For example, 

1. When should you delegate, not because of expertise but because of time?  
2. Is going with a cheaper option on a deliverable the smart thing to do if it’s going to cost you two extra hours to configure?  
3. Should you work on the $3500 short term project or the $25000 long term project?

If you’ve never really thought about how much your time is worth you probably tend to go with your gut on making these kinds of decisions.  A little analysis could help.

You can use the calculator embedded in this page to help you estimate the value of each hour.  There are two ways to do it.  If you have revenue for over three months, use the 3 Months’ Revenue calculator.  If you are still pre-revenue, use the Pre-revenue calculator.  

Feel free to use the calculator as often as you wish.  It’s completely free to you and since we don’t store any of the data you enter it’s mostly free to us.

Keep this number in mind when you make decisions.  Also keep this number in mind when you decide whether or not to take our Time Management and Work-Life Balance course.  Even if that course only helps you find four hours a week, it will probably pay for itself in a day or two and pay dividends for decades.

That’s an easy financial decision to make.