My husband and I were watching a movie called In Time the other day. The premise was that when you were born, you were given a specific amount of time to live and it was on a clock embedded in your arm. When the time expired, you would die. You earned time by working. Different jobs had different amounts of time added and time was used in place of money. When you went to buy groceries, you paid with your life time.
It got me wondering, if we would treat money different if the amount in your checking account was literally on a counter on your arm. Would you change your choices of how you spend your money if it was in front of you all the time? This is what budgeting, financial reports and ultimately tax returns are all about. It gives you detailed insight into what you are spending money on, and how it affects your bottom line, not only in business, but in your personal finances.
How would you change your habits if time was money? Turning time into money has always been the goal of most businesses; you can also turn money into time. I had never really understood this part until recently. After spending almost 2 days trying to edit a video for my website, I finally hired someone else to get it done. Not only did the video come out better than I could have done it, but he could do it faster than I could. That taught me a valuable lesson.
Money is not the bottom line – time is the bottom line. Please put your ideas in the comments for how to save both time and money in your business before you are out of time!