What is your time worth?

Sage wisdom came from a business owner for whom I worked a few years ago:

I knew our office made a lot of long-distance calls, and I spent about 15 minutes trying to explain to our office manager some ways the company could probably save some money every month by subscribing to Vonage or another unlimited LD plan. Another engineer joined me, and another 15 minutes passed as we discussed the upsides and downsides.

The CEO came out of his office, and suggested that our time would be better spent finding ways to earn the company $20K than to save $200 - and that in the time we'd spent thinking about the savings (30 minutes * 3 people), we'd expended well more than that $200.

Certainly, from the company perspective, employee time is best spent focusing on that for which you have responsibility - it is why you are employed.

Similar thinking applies to our personal lives - what are you doing with your "free" time? Are you using it to your best advantage? Weekday evenings and weekends are short enough as it is - are you making best use of that time, doing what you need to do, and hopefully, what you would like to do?

For example, would it be worth it to spend $100 every two weeks to get your home cleaned by someone else, and get back the several hours you'd otherwise spend on it?

I commented to a friend of mine a few years ago that I was always amazed at what he would accomplish - teaching himself this skill, completing that project - and I asked him how he found the time to get it all done.

His simple answer: "I stopped watching TV."

What is each of your hours worth?