How much is your time worth to you? Not much it turns out!

I recently watched this youtube clip where Merlin Mann talks to "Knowledge Workers" at Google  and he raised an interesting question of how much we value our own time. An initial response is that of course I value my time heavily, but it is interesting to consider what this means and what the implications are for us. If we highly value our time, then we won't just let people use our time without making a conscious decision.

Merlin gives a great example - if someone walks down the corridor and asks for $100. Would you easily give the $100 away? certainly not! But, what if someone comes in the corridor and wants to have a 15 minute conversation (ie take, use, dispose of 15 minutes of your time) - how freely we give this commodity away.

Time is more precious than money, you can always get more money (Merlin Mann)

Another interesting side-effect of not highly valuing your time is that it can lead to procrastination. If we really see time as having a true a precious commodity, then we will not waste it. After all, we only have a limited time on this earth.

There is a real tension here. Good leaders are approachable, tend to have open door policies and will hear staff/colleagues and help them. What I've learnt from this however, is that there must be a balance.

What is the opportunity cost of giving someone 15 minutes of your time?

Who gets access to you? Who is allowed to have your time? For how long? How much notice do they need to give?

We used to respond to email instantaneously - as soon as we heard the "ding". But we have transferred this over to real life. Crazy! Like we have turned off the 'ding' of email, maybe we need to turn off the any-time access that people have to us.

Don't just say "Yes" every time someone asks as this demonstrates that we don't value our time.