Time = Money

The reason I've been uncharacteristically quiet this month (nigh on two weeks), is due to moving residence. It's a minor jump to the title of this blog post but trust me it's all linked!

The lease of my previous place of residence ended on the 10th of December and as such the ten days prior were devoted to removing objects, cleaning and sanctifying the earth in and around the house. Sufficed to say it wasn't a very pleasant task but indeed somebody had to do it.

Whilst scrubbing individual kitchen floor tiles and polishing both nooks and crannies I was afforded an amount of time to think. One thought kept reentering my consciousness and surfacing; Is this the best use of my time?

How much is your time worth?

Whilst I was in VI form fellow students and myself were discussing wages earned at our Saturday jobs. Our Biology teacher; a universally adored and respected man named John Wrighton rather brazenly, we thought, exclaimed how he would not get out of bed for what we were being paid, ~£5.50 an hour.

Now, however, neither would I.

In a post I've written concurrently, I talk about diversifying my abilities and skills. This is not, for the most part, a simple process. Learning new things takes time; time I do not have if I'm cleaning cobwebs from guttering. However that time and the skills learned can lead to jobs in which the position requires broader, more varied or a deeper skillset. These positions invariably come with an attractive pay rate befitting the smaller pool of applicants with requisite abilities. Hence, slightly indirect although possible reward for putting in hours to learn.

I spent around a week in total cleaning, with some crazy late nights all in the hope of a full bond payout. In hindsight, I think my time would have been better spent doing almost anything else and the cost of hiring a professional cleaning outfit to whip through the property would have paled into insignificance in the grand scheme of things.

I feel almost arrogant in saying that my time is more important than the cleaning of a house prior to ending a lease but at the same time, I'm an ineffective non-professional cleaner. Is my time not better invested becoming more effective and more professional in my current career?

My caveats

It should be noted that while it seems like the easy way out, often, to pass on tasks to other people in return for a little cash. One should take the time to assess if their time is worth the money transferred for tasks. My time is not worth so much that I can dine out every night - notwithstanding the fact I enjoy cooking. My time is also not worth having a maid service my apartment every week. However, the once in a fairly long time movement of my entire life... I think I can ask for help with that!