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Time is an important resource; one we cannot buy with money. With our day-to-day activities focused on how to earn a living, balancing our social life and setting the appropriate number of hours for our leisure activities, we know that time is a precious commodity. While we can trade time for gold we cannot trade gold for time.

But balancing an hour’s productivity and worth has always been a problem. Since we live in an era of multi-tasking we try to squeeze the most productivity from every single hour. We even justify this notion by the number of tasks done per hour. And though this seems productive it can be tiring and time consuming.

With that in mind, let us shift our attention to wealthy individuals. These people already have sufficient in their bank accounts. They have a mindset or an attitude that their time is worth a lot of money and they would much rather pay other people to do services for them in order to free up their time. This is as close to trading gold for time that one can get.  And this opportunity allows free time for themselves so they can easily focus on the important aspects they choose whether it is additional professional ventures, starting businesses or floating through the ocean of life like a wandering, drifting plankton.

They would much rather pay other people to do tasks for them to free up their calender than spend their precious times on tasks that do not generate utility, joy or happiness.   Here are just some tips to help you increase work productivity and opportunities for leisure time.

ASSIGN VALUE TO YOUR TIME

To get started on this, assign a dollar value to each hour of your time. This will help in leaving the typical employee attitude where their time’s value averages from $10 to $40 dollars an hour.

Set the goal of what your time is worth to you. You can start by placing a hundred dollar price tag for your work per hour. Then streamline and automate as many of your tasks as possible to save your time.  It all comes down to how much do you value your time, and by doing so, every decision and action that comes within that hour will be better and more productive.

OUTSOURCE LOW LEVEL TASKS

Setting this standard by placing a value for your time allows you to raise the bar on which activities you do.  For example, if you value your time at $100 per house and spending time in the garage to fix your car or do other menial tasks could be outsourced to a handyman for $40 per hour then doing those tasks yourself would not be the best use of your time.

With this mindset you can now start to identify which tasks to delegate and outsource.  This will help you focus on the things that you want.  This applies to business, personal and family matters.

Wealthy individuals use their money in order to have free time. Now, I am not saying that spending for every service available is right course of action but paying for services that can free up your time can help you achieve your goals.

For example, if you are planning to start an online business then there are many things to accomplish such as the website design, creating content and regular maintenance. Aside from those three factors you must balance your work and family life. You may eventually become so overwhelmed that you can only focus on one thing.

Well, suppose the website requires three to four hours of maintenance.  With your hourly rate valued at $100, that activity alone will cost you up to $400. Now, that is a lot of money as a daily expense if you are the one maintaining it. There are a lot of people today, such as freelancers, that can do it for you for quicker and for a lower price.  Outsourcing also allows your to become location independent because you can use individuals all over the world easily and efficiently with the assistance of the World Wide Web.

KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO

Recognizing the tasks that you should do and what you should outsource is an important element in increasing your overall productivity. In fact, with Internet’s help there has been a surge in outsourcing projects to other countries which was impossible only a few years ago.

This gives you complete access to specialists in the area you want and costs may be much lower in China or India as compared to the United States or Europe.  Hopefully you adequately interview and evaluate your freelancers so that you get high quality and timely service for a fair price.  This will then allow you to do other things that are more important.

This process involves 3 steps:

1. Set an specific amount of value for you hour
2. Identity which tasks can be outsourced to increase your productivity
3. Begin to outsource tasks (start with little tasks to avoid large losses or inconvenience)

By implementing the few concepts mentioned above you will likely see your productivity increase.  You will accomplish more with less input.  You will have more time available for other activities you choose.  This will help you get more utility and value from your life which will allow you to focus on the things which really matter and are really worth your time.

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