Are You Aware How Much You Sell Your Time For?

99-SECOND READ

"You can do so much in ten minutes’ time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity."

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA

The time in your life is finite; no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy any more. In this post I’m going to expose the truth behind how much you’re really selling it for. 

These two examples demonstrate the link between the hours we work and our compensation:

Example 1: Small job, big pay.

Jenny is on a £50k salary in a job where she works from 9 – 5 (37.5 hours per week – a standard UK full-time contract). So Jenny earns £26 per hour.

James does the same job on the same salary for a different company. He’s not as productive as Jenny, and there’s a ‘work hard’ office culture, which he believes in, so he works from 8:30-6:30, (50 hours per week). So, James earns £19 per hour.

The result:

• James earns 27% less an hour than Jenny
• Every 100 hours Jenny works, she earns £70 more than James

FACT: Every hour of unpaid overtime you do a week reduces your hourly rate by 2.7%

Example 2: Big job, small pay.

Sophie works hard in a well-paid senior management role in a large company, she earns £90k a year and regularly clocks up 75-hour weeks. She therefore earns £23 per hour – that’s 12% less than our friend Jenny.

Jenny also has 37+ hours per week (140 hours per month) more free time than Sophie: time to live her life.

The result: Jenny is paid 12% more for every hour she works and has nearly double the amount of free time, which allows her to do more exercise, sleep properly, spend more quality time with her family and loved ones, spend more on her hobbies, passions and contributing to causes she cares about.

• Who really values their time more?
• Who has a more balanced life?

Take Action

Your time is infinitely valuable - never confuse the value of your time with how much someone is prepared to pay for it.

Define your professional value by the amount you’re paid per hour.

This tool can will calculate it for you: https://www.omnicalculator.com/finance/salary-to-hourly

By the way, If you can cut your work hours back by an hour per day that’s 261 extra hours a year – 16 waking days!

If you found that interesting, you can subscribe to the 99-SECOND BLOG to stay up to date with insights and ideas on how to live a balanced life.