Would you ever pay someone to do your homework?
In college, I had to conduct and record two interviews for a research paper I was writing. Part of the grading criteria included turning in transcriptions of the interviews. After five minutes of hitting play and pause on the recording and struggling to transcribe coherent sentences, I gave up. I knew there had to be a better way.
At this pace, it would’ve taken me 3 hours to complete just one of the interviews. So, I looked online and found a freelancer who would do each transcription for $10. I thought it would be money well spent, but I didn’t have much money in college, so I hesitated to outsource the transcriptions.1
At the time, I was a personal trainer at the university gym and made $20 an hour. If I picked up one session, I’d make enough money to pay for both of the transcriptions! After the first hour of work, I could pick up additional sessions to earn extra income or go home and get 5 hours of my time back.
By hiring a freelancer for the job, I ‘bought’ 6 hours of time. I could then leverage that time however I wanted.
Buying time is about making trade-offs based on what you value. Time is a finite resource; so, it’s up to you to decide how you want to best use it.
Time Scarcity
What is your time worth?
Time is a scarce resource. It doesn’t matter who you are; everyone has the same 24 hours each day. You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time magically appear.
So, the better question is: How do you want to spend your limited time?
How you want to spend your time is a reflection of what you value and enjoy. If you could spend more time doing things that you enjoy, wouldn’t you feel better?
A research study led by Ashley V. Whillans from the Harvard Business School found that buying time does promote happiness. The researchers found that “spending money on time-saving services is linked to greater life satisfaction.”
Adults in the study reported greater happiness from time-saving purchases compared to material purchases. The results suggested that buying time “buffers people from the negative effects of time stress on well-being.” Time stress is caused by worrying about not having enough time to do all the things you want to do. Time stress could include thinking about looming deadlines or running late to a meeting. Buying time alleviates the pressure of time stress.
Buying time enables you to do more of what you like and less of what you don’t. It allows you to spend more of your limited time doing things you enjoy and are good at.
Why People Don’t Buy Time
The concept of buying time doesn’t come naturally to everyone. It can come with preconceived notions, objections, and concerns. If you feel resistant to this idea, I’d like to ask you to be open-minded and consider another perspective.
Waste of money – You may be thinking, “I don’t want another expense in my life.” Why is this often the default mindset when it comes to buying time? Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, wrote on buying time:
“My poor dad felt that at best it was a waste [of] money to hire people who could do the work you could do yourself. At worst, he felt that it was showing off your wealth.
My rich dad, on the other hand, had no problem hiring people to help him do menial tasks. ‘Your most important asset is time,’ said rich dad. ‘The difference between a poor person and a rich person is how they use their time—and what they’re willing to pay for when it comes to time.’”
Think about buying time as an investment in your goals and well-being, rather than a waste of money. Buying time creates freedom.
What would you do with an extra hour or two a week? For instance, you could pay someone to mow your lawn, clean your house, or shop for your groceries. With that extra time back, you could work on a side hustle, read more books, or spend time with friends or family. It’s your time; use it how you want.
DIY – When it comes to outsourcing work, have you ever thought, “Why would I pay someone to do something I’m perfectly capable of?” or, “By the time I get someone else to do it, I could’ve done it myself.”?
For example, you might be ‘capable’ of filing your own taxes, but you also could hire an experienced CPA to do it for you. If your taxes are complicated or you run a business, you could spend time researching deductions and everything you need to ensure you file your taxes properly but is the best use of your time?
It might take extra time, in the beginning, to get set up with a CPA, but you should see benefits over time. The better you get at setting someone up to do a job, the more efficient the process will be.
One potential mental barrier to overcome is the reality that your standards and ways of thinking will not be the same as others. Expecting someone to think the same way you do is insanity.
Part of hiring someone to do a job is becoming okay with how they approach the job vs. expecting them to do it exactly as you would. If you nitpick their work and micromanage them, you aren’t saving any time. Instead, empower the person to do the work and get the job done in their own way. Doing this will save you from needless worry and free up your time.2
Feeling judged – Pressure to adhere to social norms and feeling judged for not following them can weigh on your mind. It can cause you to feel stressed. You may be thinking, “What will others think of me if they know I paid someone to do XYZ for me? Will they think I’m a bad, lazy, good-for-nothing person?” Feeling judged can take many forms.
- This could be the working mom who hires a cleaning service to help around the house. Will other moms think I’m not doing enough at home or that I’m lazy?
- This could be someone using a FastPass at Disney to spend more time on rides. Will other people think I’m showing off my wealth by paying extra for the pass?
- This could be the dad who pays someone to mow the lawn so he can watch his son’s baseball game. Will other people think I don’t work hard?
You can’t avoid judgment. People will always find a reason to judge, but you can control how you respond. You don’t have to live up to others’ expectations or let people define how you should live.
You are free to choose what you do with your time. Dwelling on what other people think of how you want to spend your time is a waste of your time. As Theodore Roosevelt said,
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
Leverage Your Time
Leverage is about gaining an advantage. Buying time creates leverage. Instead of spending time on low-value activities or activities you aren’t good at, you’d be better off spending your time on high-value activities and activities you excel at.
In my example, I created time leverage by paying a freelancer to get my time back, so I could go work and earn money. Hiring the freelancer was a high leverage activity.
Not all activities yield the same benefits. High leverage activities produce greater results than low leverage activities: essentially more bang for your buck. Focus your efforts on high leverage activities to maximize the effectiveness of your time. Buying time is one way to do this.
- If you want to spend more time working on a project, you could pay someone to mow your lawn or get your groceries.
- If you want to spend more time relaxing at home instead of hand washing dishes, you could save time by buying a dishwasher.3
- If you want to grow your business, you should focus on activities that create value rather than administrative work that you could outsource or hire out.
You have to figure out what is the best use of your time. Once you know that, it is simply a matter of leveraging your time accordingly, so you can spend more time doing what you want to do.
Is Buying Time Worth It?
How can you tell if buying time is worth it or you are getting the return you want? Simply, if the value you get from buying time exceeds the costs, then it’s worth it.
You can measure the return you get from buying time. ‘Return’ could be monetary, utility, or a combination.
If your time is worth $50/hour and you can pay someone $20/hour to free up an hour of your time, you can come out $30 ahead by working during that hour. The $30 is pure monetary return.
If you are busy with work and the thought of having to buy groceries at the end of the day causes you stress, you could order them online and pay $5 for curbside pickup. The return, in this case, is more time and less stress.
You could also perform an analysis to see what your return would be. For instance, I use the grocery delivery service Shipt. The service’s cost includes an annual $99 subscription fee, the cost of groceries, and a tip. The $99 is a fixed cost, the cost of groceries is what I would pay each time anyways, and tip, let’s say $10, is an additional cost.
Here’s an example. Let’s say your grocery store is 5 miles / 15 minutes away. Assuming your car gets 20 mpg, you use a half-gallon of gas, which costs ~$1, to drive to the store and back. On average, it takes 1 hour to complete your shopping, and you shop once per week.
Here is how this would net out over a year if you used a grocery delivery service:
- 78 hours saved (52 shopping hours & 26 transit hours)
- $567 net cost ($99 annual fee + $520 tips – $52 gas)
- $7.27 cost per hour
You could think of the $7.27 as the minimum amount you need to earn per hour to come out ahead when using grocery delivery. You could also think of the $7.27 as simply the cost of having groceries delivered and the return as the time you get to spend playing games with your kids, visiting friends, or watching a movie.
You don’t have to buy time if you don’t want to. But thinking about buying time can help you take a closer look at how you spend your time and evaluate if you are using it wisely.
Buying time comes down to two fundamental questions.
- What do you want to spend your limited time doing?
- What trade-offs are you willing to make to get more time?
Time is scarce; it’s up to you to decide how you want to spend it.
Footnotes
- I found the freelancer on Fiverr.com, but there are other places online you can hire freelancers, such as Freelancer.com and Upwork.com.
- This isn’t to say you should tolerate shoddy work if it is legitimately bad. But what do you have to complain about if the job gets done and the person you hired has their own way of doing it? Would you feel empowered if you were asked to solve a problem, came up with a perfect solution, and then were nitpicked for not doing it exactly as the other person would have?
- According to Energy Star, using a dishwasher saves you 230 hours a year over handwashing. It shows that if you look hard enough, you can find unique ways to buy time.