Ever feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day? You’re not alone. Whether you’re running a business, managing a team, or juggling daily responsibilities, time always seems to be in short supply. But here’s the real question: Are you using your time wisely?
The best way to answer that isn’t with a gut feeling—it’s with numbers.
Can You Put a Price on Your Time?
We all know time is valuable, but have you ever actually assigned a dollar value to yours? If not, you might be making decisions that cost you more than you realize.
For example, imagine you’re a business owner, and you spend two hours trying to fix a website issue. You could have outsourced it for $100, but instead, you burned two hours of your time—time that could have been spent working with clients, closing sales, or strategizing. If your time is worth $100 per hour, you just lost $200 to save $100.
This kind of decision-making happens all the time, but it’s often invisible. Without a clear way to measure the value of our time, we can end up prioritizing the wrong things.
The “Two Quarters vs. One Dollar” Problem
If you didn’t know the value of money, two quarters might seem better than one dollar. After all, two is more than one, right?
But that’s how many people treat their time. They focus on the number of tasks completed rather than their actual value. Just because you check a lot of things off your to-do list doesn’t mean you’re making the most of your time.
For example, answering emails might feel productive, but if it’s taking up your best working hours and stopping you from doing high-impact work, it’s actually costing you more than you think.
How to Quantify Your Time
So, how do you put a price on your time? It starts with a simple formula:
Determine Your Hourly Rate
Your hourly rate depends on how you generate income. If you’re in an overhead role—like a business owner or executive—your time’s value is based on your income goal and work hours. If you sell your time for money—like a lawyer, consultant, or freelancer—your billable rate should be your threshold since every non-billable hour is potential lost revenue.
Overhead Role (Business Owner, Manager, Executive)
A common approach is to divide your annual income goal by the number of hours you want to work in a year.
For example:
You want to make $100,000 per year.
You plan to work 2,000 hours (about 40 hours per week).
Your time is worth $50 per hour.
Now, any task that could be outsourced for less than $50 an hour should at least be reconsidered.
Billable Role (Consultant, Lawyer, Freelancer, Service Provider)
If you charge for your time, your billable rate is the best benchmark.
For example, if you’re a consultant who bills at $200 per hour, every hour you spend on admin work instead of client work costs you $200 in lost revenue. Even if you could handle the task yourself, paying someone else $30 per hour to do it is a net gain of $170.
By using your billable rate as a threshold, you ensure that your time is spent on the highest-value activities—like client work, sales, and strategic growth—rather than tasks that can be easily outsourced.
Not all tasks are equal. Some drive revenue, some maintain operations, and some are just busy work. Break them into three categories:
High-value tasks – Things that directly generate income or create long-term value (e.g., billable work, sales calls, strategy, client acquisition).
Maintenance tasks – Necessary but not income-generating (e.g., emails, admin, bookkeeping).
Low-value tasks – Things that don’t move the needle (e.g., unnecessary meetings, minor tweaks that don’t matter).
Reallocate and Outsource
Once you know what your time is worth, start reallocating. Ask yourself:
Can I automate this?
Can I delegate this to an employee or freelancer?
Does this need to be done at all?
If a task doesn’t meet your hourly threshold, it’s time to rethink whether you should be doing it at all.
The Power of Opportunity Cost
Every “yes” to one task is a “no” to something else. That’s opportunity cost.
Let’s say you spend an hour designing a flyer for your business instead of reaching out to potential clients. If your time is worth $50 an hour and a graphic designer could do it for $30, you’re losing $20—not counting the potential business you missed out on.
Final Thoughts: Prioritize Like a Pro
Time is your most valuable resource, but only if you use it wisely. By putting a dollar value on your hours, you gain clarity on where to focus, what to delegate, and what to eliminate.
So, next time you catch yourself bogged down in low-value work, ask yourself: “Is this really worth my time?” Because if you don’t value your time, no one else will.
