Hey! It’s spring! I think it is anyway…
Although, I haven’t been so sure about that.
Suffice to say we’re heading into clean-up, fix-up, and home improvement season.
The smell of fresh mulch and fertilizer is in the air and we’re ready to start some outdoor projects.
I’d like to throw out a couple of thoughts for you to consider before you spend the family fortune at Home Depot. This is coming from a guy who thought he had to do everything himself. Yes, every last thing on the project list.
Do you know this guy? Or, do you know her? (It’s not just a guy thing, you know).
I would take it to extremes without realizing it.
“I can do this and I’m not paying someone else to do it.” That was the decision factor until one fateful day when Lanette held a micro-intervention after some 30-minute project consumed most of our weekend. I was not going down in defeat (and I didn’t… which is the real point… because spending an entire weekend was defeat). I just didn’t get it at the time.
What if you stick with the projects you will have fun with? And then… what if we hire someone to do the not-so-fun ones?”
—Lanette
I had to ponder that for a while… for a long while, in fact. But I couldn’t find a flaw in the idea and since the project list was growing, well… I made that simple decision factor one of my rules to live by.
How much is your time worth to you?
$10 an hour? I would expect it’s much more valuable than that. So, what is it? What’s your number? $25 an hour? $50? $100? More? Tell it like it is.
Here’s another way to look at it. How much money are you refusing to give up, so you don’t have to pay someone else to do it for you? To free up some of your time. That precious time no one has enough of.
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
— Henry David Thoreau
About six or eight years ago I hired a guy to join my team at work. He valued his worth much more than he valued his time. What do I mean by that? He was a tough negotiator when it came to his salary. But every Monday, he would come to work with stories about all his projects around the house.
I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to share my hard-fought wisdom.
I asked him, “So, how much do you think you paid yourself for that project that took your whole weekend to do?”
Then, I needled him some more… “Not to mention that you’re beat and almost worthless. Nowhere near your A-game today, are you?”
He took the bait and we did the math… it turns out he paid himself about $16.50 an hour so he wouldn’t have to pay a contractor $500 to do it for him in half the time without his involvement. He didn’t like it much when I suggested that he work for us for $16.50 an hour.
It’s just the principle. I’m not paying someone else to do something that I can do myself.”
— Brian
Where have I heard those words before? Why do we resist hiring others when we can? It’s not an indulgence… it gives others a job. A job they want.
In this go go go, more more more, now now now world we live in, most of us wear that crazy busy badge of honor with pride. But why?
Do you have enough hours in the day? Enough to get it all done? (Okay, finished…do you have enough time to get it all finished?)
The productivity scholars have given it a name—”TIME POVERTY”
Unreal, I kid you not. Time poverty. Sounds special, don’t you think?
Time is a non-renewable resource. Sort of like money… when it’s spent, it doesn’t regenerate. Time is in fact, your most precious resource. We all universally want more of it.
But here’s a solution… and it’s actually a good one
Studies prove it. The research backs this up…
The happiest people use their money to buy time.
“Whaaat? How do they do that? You can’t do that.”
Wouldn’t it be great to be generous and buy yourself some time, all at the same time?
I’ll ask the question again, “Why do we humans feel like we’re giving part of our self-worth away if we pay someone to do something we could do ourselves?”
That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Does it feel like too much of an indulgence? Is that why we resist?
Or it is the feeling that we shouldn’t ask someone to do something for us that we’re perfectly capable of doing ourselves?
The part we’re getting wrong is that most people want to work.
And if they’re in that line of work, it’s because they’re good at it. It’s what they do to make a living, just like anyone else. Finding customers is hard work in and of itself.
My friend and fellow blogger, Julia sums it up well…
When you buy a service or product that saves you time or hire someone to help you with a task you don’t like, or isn’t your area of expertise, you help support someone else’s family and dreams. How can that not be the right thing to do?”
—Julia Pizzolato, Marketing Psychology Expert
I’d say it’s worth considering.
Go buy some time and be untucked.
I post on Wednesdays, but you might miss out…
Why not subscribe? No SPAM ever. Unsubscribe anytime.
Just click the box below or to the side, fill out the form, and get ‘Untucked
Copyright © 2019 Jeff Meister
Leave a Reply