How Do You Value Your Time?

One of the things about being self-employed (SE) is that we find that we have to do everything--sales, advertising, accounting, PR, and, oh yeah, the work too! Usually in the beginning there is no one to delegate to. The theory goes that at some point, in order to grow our business, we have to outsource tasks. How do we know which tasks to outsource?

Well, the first step seems to be to calculate the value of our time, usually on an hourly basis. If our time is worth $75/hour, then if we can get someone to do our bookkeeping for $50/hour, we should do so. If we can find a skilled person to write copy for our website, or update the site, or generate sales leads, and that person costs less than $75/hour, then it makes sense to outsource.

This whole topic of the value of my time is thought provoking. What about the value of free time? I read an interesting thread on a tax/accounting forum about hiring someone to do domestic chores. Someone wrote in that he was being accused of being lazy and good-for-nothing because he hired someone to clean his house and do chores, when he was perfectly capable of doing those things for himself.

If outsourcing in business is a good practice, then why wouldn't outsourcing on the domestic front be similar? The idea being that it is smart, for those who can afford it, to outsource domestic chores so that our free time can be spent on activities that refresh and renew us. I agree that I'd rather spend 2 hours reading a new book than mowing the yard in the summer heat.

Here's a personal example of a financial calculation that backfired: One of the windows in my home got cracked in a hurricane. I decided to replace it myself, rather than hiring it done. I bought a nice double-paned window from Home Depot for about $120. I live in a concrete block home. I've replaced many windows in a wood frame home, but never in a block home. To make a long story short, I ended up having to purchase a cold chisel for $12, a hammer drill for $120, drill bits for another $10, longer screws for god knows how much, and some concrete mortar and 2 tubes of caulking for the outside. Lets not even discuss the mess I had to clean up and the full day it took me to do the job (which turned out very nice, thank you).

I could have easily hired the very talented handyman who put in my dishwasher to do the job, probably for less money, and not blown a whole day on the darn thing. Lesson learned. I don't mind painting here and there, but some things just say: OUTSOURCE!

Outsourcing is also good for the economy. It provides American jobs (unless you are outsourcing to India!). You wouldn't do that would you?