Nov 19, 2009
Making Proper Use of Time
A few months ago I wrote an article about wasting time. At that point I was still adapting to my new occupation and it took me a significant amount of time to complete the necessary steps to make my website profitable each day. In all reality, I had to work between 8 and 12 hours a day to get my “work” done. To be completely honest I was a little bit stressed out and felt I HAD to put that much work in to make the money I was making.
Today things are much different as I have successfully reduced the amount of time it takes me to do my “job” by at least one third. I will give you an example with some fictitious numbers. Prior to November it took me about 8 to 12 hours to make $100 a day (once again, fictitious numbers!). If you do the math you can figure out that I was making about $10 an hour for my efforts. This did not bother me at all as I had no boss and I could blog from anywhere I wanted in shorts and a t-shirt.
As I better understood how things operate my productivity greatly jumped. With the help of some new software and a few friends I saw the time it took me to complete the necessary work greatly decrease. Today it takes me approximately three hours a day to complete the same amount of work it took me ten hours a few months ago. Instead of making about $10 an hour I am now up to about $30 an hour.
Making $30 an hour working from home is something many people would absolutely love. Do not get me wrong, it is a wonderful opportunity and I am learning to cherish it greatly. Only working three hours a day allows me to do many of the “fun” things I have always wanted to do. Recently I decided to increase that workload to see if the revenue would increase as well. If three hours a day makes me $100 a day surely six hours would net me $200 right? Wrong!
After about two weeks of working very hard and, once again, being a little bit stressed out I found that working six hours a day only increased my revenue to about $115 to $120 a day. This means that instead of $30 an hour I would be making $20 an hour. After thinking about this and realizing how my stress level increased the decision to scale back my work was very easy. In January or February I might consider increasing an hour or two a day but at this point it is just not worth it to me.
Working three hours a day from any location I desire is something that I must learn to cherish and accept. Even though we would all like to increase our salary we must step back and look at the big picture. I make a significant amount of money; more than enough to cover all my expenses and still invest a large amount each month. I know that working for my own business means that I do not have a 401(k) or any type of retirement so I put away a large percentage of my paycheck in the investments of my choice (I have been quite successful picking investments!).
Now that I have realized that three hours of work a day is what it takes me to be happy I would urge you to step back and determine what amount of work makes you happy. I know many of you do not have the opportunity to just tell your boss that you can get your job done in four hours. What you can do is sit back and do some analysis. Maybe you deserve a long lunch each day because you can complete your “job” in an hour less than you are scheduled. Maybe you should reward your hard work with some conversation with other employees, if your boss allows it!
Being able to adjust the amount I work is one of the main reasons I decided to quit retail and create my own business. I know that the amount of work I put in is a direct correlation to my compensation. There are very few other occupations that can claim that. Now it is time for me to get back to my happiness list as I have 13 free hours today to do as I please.
