Get Ready to Trade Your Time
The biggest misconception about running your own business is you work less. We hear the comments all the time, “Must be nice to be your own boss,” “I wish I could work from wherever I want,” “How do you make money without working?” If you interviewed most entrepreneurs, they didn’t become an entrepreneur for the money or because they hated working for someone else, they did it because the time schedule of a 9 to 5 job doesn’t work for them. Entrepreneurs have been around for hundreds of years and when you think about time, the limited amount we have per day and the responsibilities we have to our families, our home and our jobs, it’s incredible that we get even the minimum done. The truth is, when you have your own business, you are on the clock 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. There are no days off, no PTO and no vacations. When you are an entrepreneur, you are the business. So why would anyone want to become an entrepreneur? Time is a limited resource and has high value. We are all on this planet for a limited time and everyone has a different beginning and end. With so many people's time clocks running continuously, trying to figure out your own time can be confusing.
Time is not yours
There are only two ways to get more time, you either make it or buy it. To make more time you have to take that time from somewhere else. Get up earlier, stay up later, do something faster or stop doing one thing to do another thing. Buying more time means that you are paying someone to do something for you so that you can get back your time. Most of us do this often and we don’t even know it. Going to the grocery store, buying a coffee, hiring a gardener, using a dishwasher, these are all modern time conveniences that we take for granted. You get the idea. Time can also be tricky and throw you a curve now and then. Car breaks down, you get sick, you have to take care of a parent or child. These unexpected events happen to us at the most inconvenient moments. In our quest to make our lives simpler, we just keep adding more responsibilities to the list of tasks that we have to do. Another misconception is that time is ours. It’s not. We share it with the rest of the world. It’s not controllable. Always moving forward. It’s happening to us. As a culture we are so concerned about time, we put desperate meaning on phrases like, “You are out of time!” “There is no time!” or “Time's up!” With time getting such high value, it’s no wonder we get so protective of it. We have phrases for that too, “That was a big waste of time!” “Not worth the time.” or “Time killer.” Time is not ours, the only thing we can do is try to manipulate it or redirect it.
Trading your time
Modern entrepreneurs understand that time is fluid. Its value is not in stretches of time that you do something, but in the units themselves. We can charge down to the second for how long something takes and because of that, we are not constrained by day, night, weeks or even months. I can now schedule my time around other areas of my life that are less flexible. The times my daughter has to go to school, when my wife gets home from her job or when I decide to go to sleep. Now this idea is not without its challenges. Remember, time is not yours, so if parts of the world conform to the social norms of a 9 to 5 work day, you will need to navigate around that. You can’t go to the grocery store at 2 am if they are not open. What you can do is micro-adjust your time even further by selecting when you do a task. For example, I choose to do my most thinking intensive tasks for the early morning, when I am clear and caffeinated. Mid-morning to early afternoon is when I do my meetings and late evenings when I do a lot of my routine maintenance type of tasks. You can also do this when working for someone else, but you will have to be more creative with other colleagues' timelines as well. Trading time is not new, but there has never been a time in history where we have had this much accessibility to manipulate our time. It’s clear, now more than ever, the workforce needs flexibility with their time. Millions of the American public will be exceeding 65 years of age in the next 3 years. It will be imperative for us to have the ability of trading time like we never had before. Who will take care of this huge influx of seniors who need more help? More importantly, if this group isn’t financially prepared, extended families will be burdened with the task of becoming a caregiver, significantly reducing their time and opportunity choices for employment. The silver lining is that it’s also never been a better time to become an entrepreneur. As employers wrestle people back to the office, many people are looking for a new way to work, so it may be time to Create Your Own Job. Don’t wait, “Time is of the essence!”
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