What's Your Time Worth, Solopreneur? (How My Car Ate My Blog Post):

Here's one of my favorite content-marketing tips from copywriter Laura Belgray:

If you've skipped posting in your blog or emailing your list, don't announce it when you re-start. Don't tell them why you've been gone. Just show up again without comment.

Most people won't notice the absence, and making a big deal out of returning just feels awkward (and maybe even a little self-absorbed, i.e. “I'm absolutely sure you've been hitting refresh on your email, awaiting my inbox-gems." ).

And now, having said that, I'm going to tell you why I didn't post in the blog or email last week.

After a lovely morning hike, I returned to see that someone had smashed in one of my car windows. Bummer.

Later, my car felt… off. The “Check Engine” light started flashing wildly, so I pulled over and called to have it towed. The tow truck driver, trying to raise the non-existent window, further damaged the inside of the door.

The mechanic said that it would have to be towed to the Jeep Dealer, because the flingledingle in the floop-de-doop was damaged (not his terms, but I'm clueless about cars), and required special tools. I also planned to have the window-flimflammer fixed while it was there.

Dealer-service is pricey, and we're in a national car-shortage, so I knew it would be expensive… but when I heard the number, I literally lost my breath for a few seconds. My eyes even teared up.

That could've been a trip to Europe.

Or a year of retirement savings (if accounting for compound interest).

It was almost ⅓ of the value of the whole car. Ouch.

I didn't write last week's newsletter/blog, because I was suddenly consumed with trying to find other options. I called around to other mechanics who might have the special tools. I looked into trading in my car for a new one (see: car shortage). I talked to friends who know cars, who might have ideas I wasn't considering.

This was all very time-consuming.

I then thought about a recent conversation with a coaching client:

She sells products online, and was spending a lot of time responding to customer-requests, complaints about minute details, and competitors who were stealing her ideas.

I encouraged her to calculate the value of an hour of her time, based on income per hours worked. She does well, and the number was significant.

Together, we realized she was spending hundreds of dollars worth of time wrangling over $5-10 products. Dang.

This had to stop. We made a plan for her to quit chasing minutiae. We put auto-responders and clear policies in place. We looked at any tasks she could hire out. We reclaimed the value of her time.

So back to my car:

I realized I was missing out on valuable time by chasing down a cheaper engine floop-de-doop. I was skipping writing and learning and marketing time.

I would never pay someone hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to call around to mechanics and dealerships, so why was I willing to lose that amount in time to this silly ordeal?

I want to put my time into creating an exciting program I'm offering later this summer (I can't wait to tell you about it!), making it awesome, not scrolling through pictures of overpriced used cars that feel… meh.

(Besides, I love my car. It's bright and cheery red, and the specially-ordered manual- transmission is a blast to drive).

So this week I stopped wasting time decision-making, gave the go-ahead for the repairs, and got back to the fulfilling, fun, money-making activities that I love to do.

Have you calculated the value of your time in your business?

Think about your hourly-rate if your business was where you want it to be. Would you pay that money-amount to answer emails, clean your toilets/floors, obsess over decisions, or doom-scroll on social media? No?

Then what can you outsource, automate, release, or decide? (Share in the comments).

Your time is better spent on the activities that are fun and profitable. Value your time.