Time Leverage: How to get more than 24 hours per day
We all have the same 24 hours.
But some people know how to change that, and some don’t. Some are using leverage, the art of accomplishing more. Together we’ll bend one of the iron laws of reality — how do you get more time?
How to Leverage Time
You may not be able to make new time, but you can…
Reclaim time
Buy time back
Buy other’s time
Reclaim time -- Many things we do just don’t need to be done. Your time is being slowly eroded away through a thousand small waves. Notifications, emails, and requests. Reclaiming time is about taking control of your time. You stop allowing things to eat away at your time and attention. To reclaim your time, ensure that you are making active decisions about how you use your time, not just allowing it to slip away. Stop letting others steal your time. Reclaim it.
Control your environment
Turn off notifications
Avoid commercials
Delete Apps
Throw your phone into the ocean
Cancel
If it doesn’t spark joy, don’t go.
Ignore
Delete that email. Unsubscribe. Don’t flinch.
Let unscheduled, unwelcome calls to go voicemail. Better yet, ensure non-contact numbers can’t ring your phone at all.
Downgrade
Speaking gigs become podcasts.
Meetings become emails.
Emails become text messages.
Text messages can be ignored.
Buy time back -- Some things simply need to be done. You need groceries and you need to pay your taxes. But that doens’t mean you have to do them. When things need to be done, you can buy time back. Set an hourly rate for your time where you are willing to “buy time back” and look for opportunities to do so.
Rather than spend an hour going to the grocery store, get leverage by paying $20 to instacart to get them delivered.
Hire an accountant to do your taxes.
Use Calendly to reduce the amount time you spend scheduling meetings.
Buy other’s time -- Here is where things start to get especially fun. So far, we have just been making our 24 hours more efficient. Now, we add hours to our day. Most people are actively looking to earn money with their skills, experience, and effort. We love to buy their hours and gain a share of their talent to help us accomplish our goals.
We may only work 8 working hours a day, but if we hire a full-time assistant, we now have 16 working hours each day. As we bring on additional people, even in small fractions, we quickly get to more than 24 working hours per day.
This graphic shows a hypothetical one person working 8 hours, but getting the leverage of an additional 21 working hours in the day. They hire, contract, or have an arrangement with a property manager, agent, assistant, and 2 VAs, which all support their work and goals.
Hire an assistant to do more “commodity” tasks like research, simple email replies, scheduling, travel booking, etc.
Engage agents, salespeople, or platforms to work on your behalf for a % of the earnings that they produce.
Partner with an Agency which bundle services like producing a podcast
Hire service providers or neighbors to handle everyday tasks like cleaning, lawn mowing, or delivering home-cooked meals.
After Reclaiming Time, Buying Back Time, and Buying Other’s Time, you should be left doing two types of things:
Things only you can do.
Things you love to do.
This is the ideal state of time leverage -- you’re spending time in places of highest economic or spiritual “return.” More on this in my course, Building a Mountain of Leverage.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that economic return is the only thing that matters. Donating money doesn’t give you the same rewarding feeling as doing something yourself to help others. The goal here is not optimal output and maximum return -- the goal is to eliminate time waste. To live your best life.