Setting an Aspirational Hourly Rate

The Mindset Shift That Changed How I Spend My Time

The key to unlocking the power of automation is adopting the right mindset. One way to do that — and something that’s helped me is setting an aspirational hourly rate to reflect my income goals.

Before I expand on this, there is one key concept to wrap your head around:

Your time will always be worth more than you think it is.

And you won’t be able to unlock the full power of automation (and delegation) until you figure that out.

As a solo entrepreneur, you understand your time is your most valuable asset.

But in reality, most people don’t act accordingly (including myself sometimes).

So, why is it that we do such a piss-poor job of managing our time?

The answer has nothing to do with productivity tools and systems and everything to do with psychology.

You see — time is a vague and abstract idea. I’m sure you know your time is super valuable. But how valuable? How much is it really worth?

If you don’t have a clear, concrete answer to those questions, you will have difficulty prioritizing, delegating, and getting high-leverage things done. You’ll quickly start drowning in busy work and struggle to spend time working on the things that do grow your business.

Because without a clear framework for valuing your time, you can’t objectively tell what’s worth doing and what’s not.

Most solopreneurs fail to account for their true hourly rate. So they waste time on tasks that don’t move the needle.

The solution: set an absurdly high aspirational hourly rate.

When you set (and enforce) an aspirational hourly rate, this problem is solved for good. The way you allocate your time changes forever.

For example, say that your time is worth $1,000 an hour. Suddenly, anytime you find yourself doing a time-consuming, low-leverage $10 task — like replying to emails or manually updating a spreadsheet, you can’t help but think:

Related posts:

At Yunus Social Business we are proud to support female entrepreneurs all over the world who are innovating to solve social problems in a sustainable way. The theme for International Women’s Day this…