I recently learned that lawyers bill their work in 6-minute increments. 1/10 of an hour. That means that they have to log everything that is accomplished in every 6- minute session.
What have you accomplished in the last six minutes? The last 12 minutes? The last 18 minutes?
Friends of ours recently renovated part of their kitchen. They’ve been talking about doing the renovation for a while, but kept putting it off, as they are DIY people who work full time. On a whim they hired someone who came in, did a great job and made their life incredibly easy.
For all of January I tried to teach myself Quickbooks. After countless hours and numerous screaming fits, I called my accountant and scheduled a tutorial. 75 minutes and I love Quickbooks.
Money is so easy. Time is so hard. All of January and all that stress was far more expensive than the 75 minutes in a chair with my long list of rapid-fire questions and a very competent woman answering rapid-fire right back at me.
We get so caught up putting a price to our time. My time is not worth X dollars an hour. My time is worth all the qi and blood in my body. It is worth quality time with my husband, dinner parties with my friends, a pain-free lifestyle, time to write and read, my yoga practice, weekends to visit my family, my sleep at night, and the ability to have fun. It is worth the future of my business, the future children I will some day have and all the years of adventure coming up.
What are the huge energy and time suckers in your life? Discontent? Pain? Worry? Poor sleep? Projects building up around the house? Dirty living conditions? Poor communication with old friends? Never-ending to-do list?
What if you figured out a way to make those stressors disappear? How much money would it cost to actually finish the tasks or get healthy? How much of your time is really necessary to not stress over those things? 30 minutes of work this weekend may be easier than having it on your to do list for the next six months.
I just started working with a new patient and she very politely asked me about a time frame and a treatment protocol for her condition. After spelling out my proposal I offered to run the numbers to give her an estimated figure. She just looked at me and shook her head. The idea of being pain-free suddenly seemed far more important than the amount of money and time it would take to get there.
This weekend (when you are stuck inside from the storm) make a list of ten things you could accomplish in one hour. Then go out and in 6-minute increments knock them all off your list. Get it done or make an appointment for someone else to do it. Think of how great it will feel to be done.
Then take two 6-minute increments and make a list of the things that would change your life. How much money would it cost to make your life easier? How much time would it take? How could you work towards that in the upcoming months?
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