Time is not Money
Time is not Money.
The phrase Time is Money gets thrown around day in and day out, especially by high-income earners.
For years, I spent hours strategizing over how to more efficiently manage my time while running a very successful and profitable business in wealth management. And it was an easy equation to master. Here’s how it goes:
Money you make/Hours you work = Hourly rate
Now, this is a basic equation. You could also break down “time is money” per client facing hour, per specific task, or however deeply you’d like to dive into the numbers.
Based on this type of calculation, anything that falls below a certain dollar-per-hour rate should be delegated to your team. Yes, that’s good business when cash flow is strong. So maybe your team answers the phone, manages operations, does the bookkeeping and marketing... Fantastic!
That said, learning these skills yourself—so you can complete the tasks in an emergency—is always wise. For example, there was a time in business for me when my team was lean and my right-hand team member (who managed everything) went on maternity leave, and we couldn’t find suitable coverage. I had to make difficult decisions, which the best option left me managing my business myself from home. This would be the average businessperson’s nightmare. I won’t say it wasn’t hard, but at least I had risen through the ranks and knew the processes well enough to manage them myself. My past experience of learning the basics saved me in those moments—and, truthfully, God’s grace carried me through as well. And guess what… Time wasn’t Money in those days. Past experience and know how kept things moving while I made the same amount of money, or more, because my labor costs went to $0. It did eat into my Netflix time, not going to mislead anyone here.
Back to the calculations… The “time is money” equation only makes sense when cash flow is abundant—when revenue flows directly from the hours you’re working. It doesn’t work at all when you’re starting up a business and need to focus on building cash flow, or when you have more than one business on the go. If I had a lineup of people willing to pay me $1,000/hr, then yes, I could sacrifice a basic job in the business and pay someone $100/hr to handle it in another business.
But in reality, those clients aren’t waiting outside my door 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. There’s still plenty of margin when I wouldn’t be working at a computer—or simply don’t want to be.
And beyond that, it’s a somewhat disrespectful way to think about your business. Letting costs run rampant in one business to subsidize another is not sustainable and, frankly, not good stewardship.
From selling eggs at $9/dozen, to designing a method for drying garlic, to loading meat chickens into crates for the processor at 7 a.m., to bailing out a septic system—you might not expect the businessperson in the tall tower with the Chanel pin on my blazer and exclusive wearer of Manolos to be doing all this. But from a cash flow perspective, if I have the time, the knowledge, and the tools—and I’d otherwise be paying someone else—I’ve committed to doing it myself. And it’s done wonders for my bottom line.
We’ve all heard stories of startup CEOs taking out the garbage. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of garbage to take out. This summer, I hauled a trailer full of drywall scrap to the dump, thinking it would be a quick job. Thirty minutes later, I’d tossed 950kg off the trailer, left completely exhausted, and listened to a group of angry dump workers complain about how long I took. But here’s the thing: this is my gym. I save money in my accounts by doing the heavy lifting myself rather than paying for both a gym membership and extra labor.
Side note: have you ever noticed the fitness of farmers? The successful ones do so much physical work themselves that their bodies show it. Ever see a farmer pick up a calf? That’s the equivalent weight of a small woman, and they do it all the time, sometimes they even have to grab one and run.
I tell you these stories to illustrate a few points.
When you’re starting a business—especially a farm:
Time is not money. If you have extra time, you can save money by doing work you’d otherwise pay for. That keeps money in your accounts.
You don’t need a gym membership when you have a farm. Toss the drywall, clean the pool, haul the feed, carry the buckets, stack the wood. Again—money stays in your accounts.
Cash flow is everything. If you operate with the mindset of a high-cash-flow business when you’re in startup mode, it won’t serve you well. You’ll bleed cash and likely never break through. Do everything you can to stop money from leaving your accounts.
Day-to-day management skills matter. You need to know how to run things at a basic level yourself—just in case of emergency which will for sure happen.
Starting a business means starting small—mastering the basics, understanding the time and energy required, and knowing what to do in an emergency. These skills should never be dismissed.
And honestly, even the businesspeople in the tall towers could benefit. How many executives know how to create a PDF, scan documents, fill out paperwork, or execute orders at the most basic level?
