Each and every one of us works on an hourly rate of pay. What we get paid by the hour has a direct correlation with what we choose to do with our time, and how we make use of the employees and systems we surround ourselves with in our daily work activities.
Here is a great exercise that will put into perspective how you use and manage your time, and henceforth drive your hourly rate of pay. Take out a yellow legal pad and place it on your desk. Every day for the next 3 days, in 15 minute increments, write down exactly what you did in the last 15 minutes. Here's an example:
8:30 - 8:45 Checked email
8:45 - 9:00 Checked voice mail
9:00 - 9:15 Returned phone call to client
9:15 - 9:30 Met with bookkeeper to go over monthly P&L
At the end of 3 days you will have several sheets of paper listing everything you've been doing. Now ask yourself a very important question: What do you want your hourly rate of pay to be? To find out, decide how much money you want to make this coming year. Let's say that figure is $100,000. Assuming you want to work only 40 hours a week, calculate in two weeks vacation, which will equate to roughly 2000 working hours. If you take the $100,000 income goal and divide it by 2000 hours, then your hourly rate of pay has to be $50 an hour to achieve your objective.
Now let's get back to those yellow sheets of paper. Leave the office for a few hours and take these sheets of paper with you, along with a red and a green highlighter. Go through these 3 days of work and highlight in RED everything on those pages that you would NOT want to pay someone $50 an hour to do. Next, highlight everything in GREEN that is worth $50 an hour to you. After you have gone through this entire list of activities, you will more than likely find you have more red activities than green.
Your objective now is to get rid of the RED activities on your schedule! These are things you should delegate to other people on your staff. Make sure those tasks are getting done, but they aren't things that need to be done by you. You will free up a significant amount of your time by eliminating these RED activities. Your job is to fill that free time with GREEN activities! After completing this exercise and dedicating yourself to performing only GREEN activities, you will find your hourly rate of pay will skyrocket - along with your income!
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