MAKE THE MOST OF TME

When I was just in my early twenties (quite a while ago now) it seemed to me that the main measures of success in life were material possessions and ultimately driven by money. However, as I have aged and the more I talk to the next generation it seems that a more pressing priority and measure of success is heavily driven by TIME. Whether that be time to spend travelling, time to spend with family and loved ones or time to invest in business, whatever the reason for prioritising more time it seems that the people deemed the most successful have found some sort of balance between money, work and all other aspects of life.

As business owners we are often looking to save a few quid by investing our time in completing a task ourselves rather than paying someone else to do it for us. After all, why would we spend our hard earned cash unnecessarily? It’s similar to DIY at home, I’m rubbish at DIY yet I continue to try to avoid paying a specialist to come do those ‘simple’ tasks around the house to save myself a few quid for what I always believe will be a small investment of time. It always starts off well and sometimes (but rarely) it all goes exactly as I planned and I complete the task with very little hassle in a couple of hours. However, more often than not the task is slightly more complicated than I thought or something doesn’t quite go to plan, often these issues cause stress, end up costing money and eat more of my ‘free’ time. Ultimately, these are all the things I am actively trying to avoid at work and certainly don’t need at home. I usually end up spending at least double the time I had expected it to take to complete the task and I still end up frustrated that I can’t quite get the finish that I wanted at the end. If I reflect and assess the time I actually spent completing the task I know, that in most cases, I would have rather paid someone else to come and do it for me. The difficult year we have just been through has taught me what is important in life and I put a much higher value on spending time with family and, hopefully at some point in the not too distant future, friends. To do this I have to prioritise and make best use of my time.

I also see this same issue with people adopting an approach of creating a website themselves. They invest their time (usually a few days) in attempting to build a website on the cheap through one of the many self-build products available on the market. Much like DIY, some people are naturally good at this and meet their goal quickly and efficiently but the majority are not completely happy with the result despite the investment in time and do not end up with the website that promotes their business in the way that they originally hoped. They can log multiple support questions and eventually get to a point where they are content with the end result but I can guarantee it will take them more time than they had expected. Building a website themselves has taken them away from completing other key tasks in their business or spending time doing what is important to them. If you could put a price on your free time what would it be? I am not just talking about the rate that you get paid (although this might be acceptable to you), I am talking about time you could be spending with your partner, kids or friends and time you could be spending doing something you actually enjoy.

Think about how you want to use your time and then think seriously about using a professional to complete tasks where it represents value. If you need a new website or a website redesign to take your business to the next level then feel free to contact us at BATS at https://bats.work and check out our low prices, excellent reviews and previous projects. We will ultimately save you time (and money) and free you up to focus on the things that are important to you.