The One Dollar A Minute Rule
July 18, 2008
An interesting way of making decisions in a time-poor world is to imagine that every working minute of your day is worth one dollar to you. If you work for say nine hours then you have $540 worth of potential time each day that you can utilize or 2700 dollars each working week!
Now i know that not everything can be equated to a dollar figure. For example if i spend 20 minutes helping my kids do their homework then that should not have a dollar value. But what this rule of thumb provides you is but one way of having a single measure of your time and to remind you that your time is valuable.
Thinking this way might just help you to make better, quicker decisions in your everyday life. For example, the other day i spent about ten minutes deciding which pen to buy — this was just a garden variety pen but i agonized over color, brand, ink width etc. Under the dollar a minute rule i would have spent at that most five minutes because that was the entire pen was worth.
Try it next time you are faced with a decision. For example if i had to decide whether to go to a meeting. Ask yourself is it worth more to me than the 60 minutes i will spend there (i.e. is it worth more than $60 to me). If the answer is yes than go for it. If not, politely say no.
The one dollar a minute rule might just help you make better, faster decisions.
Ken Hudson
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