192: How Thinking of Time as Money Can Transform Your Life and Business

Welcome to the She Thinks Big! Podcast. Get ready to level up your thinking and expand your horizons. I’m your host, Andrea Liebross, your guide on this journey of big ideas and bold moves. I am the best-selling author of She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary.

I support women like you with the insights and mindset you need to think bigger and the strategies and systems you need to turn that thinking into action and make it all a reality. Are you ready to stop thinking small and start thinking big? Let’s dive in.

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the She Thinks Big! Podcast. Woo! It's been like a month now since I can say that, She Thinks Big! Podcast, so good, and so exciting. A lot of time, energy, and effort went into that rebranding effort, but it's been worth it. It has been worth it.

Today I'm going to bring you an episode that is inspired, like most of my episodes, by the coaching calls I do with my clients inside the Mastermind, inside what I call Runway to Freedom, the Runway to Freedom Mastermind.

Often in there, we're making big decisions. We are often at the point of deciding how to spend our money. And if we spent our money in a certain way, would it give us back more time?

This can be in the form of hiring. This can be in the form of automation and processes, just actually pausing and creating a business plan. Spending money to create the business plan will actually give you back time. I could make a huge argument for that.

Today I want to really dive into this a little further, that the adage time is money is truly more than just a catchy phrase. It's a powerful mindset and it really can lead you to significant improvements in your business, in your productivity, in your financial freedom and overall quality of life, how you spend your energy or your brain power.

This equating of time with money can be a really powerful tool. You can make more informed decisions, you can prioritize tasks, what you're going to do each day, your to-do list more effectively.

Ultimately, I do believe you can achieve your goals more effectively and efficiently. I want you to think about if the 24 hours in your day is really $24,000, what you would do if each one of those hours was worth $1,000? If you knew that each one of those hours was worth $1,000, I bet you would make some different decisions.

If you think about it, if every day was an $8,000 day, I'm going to say you'd probably be pretty happy. What's the quick math on that? If every day was an $8,000 day, let's just say that there are 20 work days in a month, you're going to have $160,000 months, which means that you're going to have 1,920,000 dollars years. I don't think that's so bad.

If every hour was worth $1,000, 8 hours in a day, you're working 20 days a month, 12 months a year, you're making $1.9m. Not so bad.

I want to give you six benefits of your thinking about this analogy of every hour being worth $1,000. All right, you ready? This is noteworthy. Get out your pencil. Number one, if you were thinking about every hour is worth $1,000, I hands down believe that you would enhance your productivity.

When you start viewing time as a valuable currency, you are more likely to use it wisely. Just as you probably wouldn't spend money on frivolous purchases, you would become less inclined to spend time or waste time on unproductive activities. I could give you a whole list of unproductive activities, but I know you know what they are.

When you shift your perspective into viewing time as a valuable currency, it really encourages you to focus on the tasks that provide the highest return on investment, whether that is in your business, in your personal life, or for financial gain.

I always talk about your most valuable resources, time and money are on the list, but brain power is also on the list. This is where the brain power piece comes in. You are using brain power to start viewing your time as money.

You know, if you listen back to past episodes where I talk about your most valuable resources and I argue that your brain power is your most valuable resource, this is why. Because you're going to use your brain power to figure out what to do with your time so that you can create more money. How do we do this?

Two tips, they are not rocket science. Number one, figuring out what your priorities are. That is a lot of what we do in a Vision Into Action Intensive. If you haven't done one of those, you need to do it because we dig deep into figuring out what your priorities are.

What are the high-value tasks, high-value projects, and high-value goals that align with the direction you want your business to go in? Are you completing those tasks and projects first before the other stuff?

Okay, so key tip number one, set your priorities. Number two, avoid time wasters. Minimize the things that don't contribute to the objectives, like social media does not necessarily contribute to your objectives. Unnecessary meetings, probably not contributing to your objectives. Attending the cocktail hour may or may not contribute to your objectives.

I had an episode on where to spend your networking time last month or maybe two months ago. Go back and listen to that episode. All right, number one, I will bet you that if you start thinking about your time as actual dollars, you're going to increase or enhance your productivity.

Number two, you're going to become better at decision-making. Thinking of time as money is really going to help you evaluate the true cost of all of your decisions. This really encourages you to consider the cost opportunity of your actions.

What are you giving up by spending your time on a particular activity? By understanding that every hour spent on one task is an hour not spent on another. Can you make more strategic decisions about how to allocate your time? I bet you can.

I was just talking about this with a client today, deciding whether or not she should keep her store open during the week or if it should be by appointment only. I want to know what the cost-benefit analysis of this is. What are the potential benefits of keeping the store open against the time investment required?

It's going to cost her time and actually, it's going to cost her money to keep the store open because she's going to have to hire someone to sit there. What are the potential benefits of that versus not doing that and spending her time elsewhere with clients out in the field, making new connections? I don't know but she needs to do some cost-benefit analysis.

Then there's another way to put this as cost opportunity awareness. You've got to be mindful of what you're sacrificing when you choose to engage, and we'll call it low-priority tasks, low-priority projects.

That's benefit number two. You're going to become way better at making decisions on where you want to spend your time because you're going to evaluate the true cost of them, which leads to number three, improved financial management.

Equating time with money can honestly lead to better financial habits. A lot of times when I'm trying to decide what I should invest in, I also have to decide how much time I'm going to be investing in it, dollars and time.

When you recognize that time has a monetary value, you become way more conscious of how you spend both your time and your money. Think about when you invest in a new software. It's going to take time and money. Initially up front, but in the long run, it's going to hopefully save you time.

This mindset of recognizing your time as a monetary value really does help you make more prudent financial decisions, such as investing in your education or your skills to increase your earning potential or your business growth potential.

One thing that can come from this is recognizing that investing in yourself and allocating to activities that enhance your decision-making skills, your CEO skills, and your knowledge, totally lead to long-term financial benefits.

When I do these retreats, that is you investing in yourself. There is a huge return on that. I bet you a million dollars that all of my clients would say there was definitely a financial benefit from that in the long run.

Number two, the second key tip here under the improved financial management is budgeting, getting better at not just budgeting your time, which sometimes people actually find easier, but budgeting your money. Understanding cash flow, and making a plan for when you're going to invest.

Creating a schedule and a financial plan—a schedule's like a time plan—and also creating a financial plan so that you can ensure you're investing both of those resources wisely.

I would also say a belief plan. That's a plan so that you're investing your brain power wisely, your energy wisely. Number four, the fourth benefit of thinking about this 24 hours in a day as $24,000. You have a greater focus on your own personal growth.

I will go back to something that Whitney said at my She Thinks Big Live event in January. She said she recognizes that her business is only going to grow as fast as she grows personally.

By valuing your time as you do money, you are more likely to invest in activities that promote personal growth. This could include learning new skills, pursuing hobbies, engaging in self-care, and engaging in coaching. Recognizing the importance of time encourages you to seek things that are going to enrich your life, contribute to your overall well-being, help you fast-track things so that you reach your goals a lot quicker.

You should definitely be investing in continuous learning. You've got to dedicate time to learn. Just as you would dedicate budgeting for financial investments, you've got to dedicate time.

Sometimes people say, “Well, how much time should I plan on spending?” Honestly, you don't have to spend tons because the coaching in and of itself is an investment in time if you show up for calls for example.

But also the time you spend is going to be focused. That's a win-win. You're actually saving money in that sense because you have focused time, not scrolling, not reading a thousand books, not just listening and taking no action.

All right, number five, the benefit of thinking about this $24,000 thing. It totally enhances your work-life integration. When you view time as money, it absolutely can help you achieve that integration, our new way of saying work-life balance.

When you understand, or when you start to think about the value of your time as $24,000 for 24 hours, you are way more likely to set boundaries, to say yes and no to the things that matter most to you.

This is totally going to help you allocate time to your family, time to your leisure, and time to your work. It's going to reflect or it's going to align with your life plan. There was a whole episode I did, a life plan back in the winter. Go listen to that one.

This enhanced work-life integration thing is totally going to help you create or get better at setting boundaries and protecting your personal time. This happens to presenting as a client too.

I had someone ask me, “How do you tell your clients that no, you're not available on the weekends?” You just say, “I reserve the weekends for my family, I'll get back to you on Monday, feel free to message me over the weekend, but you're most likely not going to get a response until Monday morning.”

That's a boundary and it's a very polite way to do it. Okay, number two, the key tip to get this enhanced work-life integration, prioritize relationships, like relationships with your family, but also relationships with your friends and your community, that's what makes life interesting. It makes life enriching.

Tonight, I am having five women over. We call ourselves the faux book club. We don't read books anymore. We just meet and we've been doing this for 20 years. I prioritize those relationships.

All right, last one, number six. When you think about this $24,000 for 24 hours, you actually have a lot more motivation and you have a lot more accountability. If you recognize that time is a limited resource, you're going to get motivated to make the most out of it.

This type of mindset fosters your own sense of accountability. You don't need anyone else to hold you accountable, except you. You are way more likely to take ownership of how you spend your time, knowing that time lost cannot be regained. But you can use brain power to create more value from the time.

Brain power can drive you to stay focused and committed to your goals. You've got to number one, set clear goals. Number two, you have to track your progress. Tracking progress is something that not everybody is great at.

You know what, make note, that would be a great podcast episode. So, Stacey, producer, if you're listening, we should be doing an episode on tracking progress. Just saying.

All right, let's wrap this up. The six benefits I see from you starting to think about time as money are number one, enhanced productivity. Number two, better decision-making. Number three, improved financial management. Number four, greater focus on personal growth. Five, enhanced work-life integration. Six, increased motivation and accountability.

What does this all mean? This means that when you value your time as a precious resource, you can make more strategic choices, You can become better at prioritizing and you can achieve actually a much more balanced and integrated work life.

I'm going to bet you too, you can have an amazing business. Time is just one of your resources. Money is another. Brainpower is another. People and relationships are another.

But time, once it's spent, can't be reclaimed. You could also say the same as money in a way. You could all get really super philosophical on this. But the bottom line is, people, make every moment count. Make sure that you recognize the value of time. It's precious. It's like diamonds. Maybe we should think about 24 diamonds, that would have been better.

All right, my friends, if you want more help thinking about what you should do with your time, consider that Vision Into Action Intensive. That is one of the things that we talk about in there. Where should your time go? Where should your focus be?

Until next week, think bigger. I want to know what you're thinking bigger about. Send me a message, DM me. If you haven't checked out our new revamped website, you need to go do that right now too. I will see you next week. Send me messages, and schedule calls. There's no cost to any of that and it doesn't take too much time. I bet you, you will get a benefit from it. Bye for now.

Thanks for tuning into the She Thinks Big! Podcast. If you're ready to learn the secret to unleashing your full potential, don't forget to grab a copy of my book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary. It's available on Amazon and at your favorite bookstore.

And while you're there, grab a copy for a friend. Inside, you'll both find actionable strategies and empowering insights to help you navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and life, and step confidently into your extraordinary future.

If you found value in today's episode, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you're ready to take this learning a step further and apply it to your own business and life, head to andreaslinks.com and click the button to schedule a discovery call. Until next time, keep thinking big.