Our friend and client, world-class sales trainer John Barrows, wrote a post a little while back called "Know Your Hourly Rate." It was simple but profound (as most profound things are). The core of the concept is this:
If you make $200,000 a year, and you work 2510 hours per year (based on 10-hour days), then your hourly rate is around $80. You can then use that as a filter for how you spend your time. You ask yourself “Is this $80/hour work?” And if the answer is no, you delegate and/or find a tool that can automate it.
But the application of this idea can go even further.
First, let’s tweak the formula for the $200k/year executive. John is a machine and gets in his 10+ hours a day, but the average person may not (at least on average). Using the tool referenced in the post, the actual productive working hours in a year is likely closer to 1900 (assumes 8-hour days, 8 U.S. holidays, 10 PTO days, 5 sick days, and 2 personal days). This does not take into account unproductive time during a normal 8-hour work day - Facebook, online shopping, etc - but that’s harder to quantify so we left it out.
Given those assumptions, your hourly rate is closer to $105. Here’s a table to show what yours might be: