If you’re in the northeast United States, you know you need to mow pretty much every week in the summer. But there was a point a few summers ago, due to rain, lack of child care, and travel, that I didn’t get mow my lawn for nearly 3 weeks.

So one day, I set out to mow the very long, still kind of wet lawn. On top of that, I had to weed wack, and take a hedge trimmer to some overgrown bushes. It was shaping up to be a big job. Something that normally takes an hour took an entire afternoon.

And because I was choosing yard work over billable work for my business, I lost income.

That was the last time I mowed my lawn.

What is Opportunity Cost?

It was a big job — one my lawn mower couldn’t handle. Grass kept getting stuck in it. I kept having to stop and start. I needed to get both gas, and oil. Weed waking took forever. The grass was too wet to blow off the sidewalks. And I had never trimmed hedges before.

I could have paid someone far less to do it much faster.

This is known in economics as opportunity cost. You answer this basic question: What’s the cost of me doing one thing vs. another?

In my Econ class in high school, the example was choosing to go to a concert on a Friday night vs. choosing to do a shift at work. The answer there was:

(The cost of the ticket, gas, and food) + (the lost wages)

If you decide the concert is worth that much to do, you should go. And since in the early 2000s, we’re probably looking at $200, the experience was super worth it.

In this case, what was the cost of me mowing the lawn — something I didn’t personally need to do — vs. doing work that actually makes me money?

In this case, it was around $900.

Most People Don’t See The Hidden Costs

If I hired someone to mow my lawn, they would have had better equipment to mow, weed wack, and hedge trim. They would have had more experience and therefore more skill to do the work quickly and efficiently. And they would not have charged more per hour than I charge, nor would it taken them as long.

In fact, I did hire someone immediately after that day. They charge me $37 each week from April to mid-November.

It costs me around $1000 for them to mow my lawn for the entire summer. I get to work on billable stuff, do other things on the weekend, and I never have to think about that task again.

It’s More Than Just What’s Coming Out of Your Wallet

But most people don’t see it that way. They strictly look at money in and money out. The lawn costs them nothing because no money came out of their bank account, so they continue to do it.

The people who do see this, and realize where they spend their time is directly relate to how their business grows, start to earn more.

Warren Buffet once said time is the only thing you can’t buy. That means you need to win it back.

You Don’t Need to do Everything for Your Business

I learned this the hard way, when I had a panic attack because I was trying to do everything for my business and my podcast, and still be fully present with my family — especially during the pandemic.

I was putting too much time into my podcast because it was a strong revenue driver for my overall business, not realizing that I didn’t need to do everything.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you have a great interview with a guest. Now it’s time to edit. You’re using software you’re still kind of learning.

And this interview has a slightly different issue you haven’t seen before, so you’re watching YouTube videos on how to remove AC hum from your guest’s audio. You feel like you said “um” too much so you’re trying to remove some, but not all of them. You don’t want to sound unnatural.

Even though the interview was only 30 minutes, the edit takes 2 hours. That’s at least 3 other interviews you could have done.

Instead, you can hire an editor who, for less than $50, can do the full edit and send you back a file that sounds better than anything you’ve done.

And you need to ask yourself: Is your time worth $25/hr?

Free Up Your Time

The saying, “you gotta spend money to make money,” exists for a reason. In spending that $50, you’ve freed up your time to record more episodes. Now you have a month’s worth of content ready to go.

Instead of rushing each week to get an episode out the door, you can spend that time growing your audience by participating in Facebook groups answering relevant questions, and courting sponsors.

Or you can just knock off for an afternoon and take your kid to the movies.

Your Challenge

Hopefully at this point you’re thinking about opportunity cost. I want you to come up with 3 things you do for your business that you remove from your plate.

THEN think about what you can do with the time you’ve freed up.