The Journey to High-Value Time

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Time is your most valuable asset. It’s something you can’t buy back, but you can control how you use it.

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Most people waste their time on tasks that don’t move the needle, and because of this, they never reach their full earning potential.

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What if you could make your time worth $1,000 per hour—or even more?

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That’s not just a pipe dream. In fact, it’s something I’ve personally achieved, and in this guide, I’m going to show you exactly how to do it too.

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What You’ll Learn in This Guide:

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By the end of this guide, you’ll understand a proven system for:

• Auditing your time to identify low-value activities.
• Systematically removing or delegating tasks that don’t drive results.
• Doubling down on high-value activities that will increase your earnings.
• Applying the wealth-building secrets of successful entrepreneurs and billionaires.

In short, you’ll learn how to make your time worth $1,000 per hour or more—using a process that anyone can follow.

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Let me tell you where it all began for me.

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1. The Life-Changing Conversation with My Grandfather

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When I was 18 years old, I found myself in a position that most people my age could only dream of.

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My father and I had started a business together, and almost overnight, I was earning $200 per hour. For an 18-year-old living on his own, this was life-changing.

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In a single day, I could make enough to pay my rent, bills, and expenses for the entire month. I felt invincible.

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But something still didn’t sit right.

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I told my grandfather, who was a successful businessman, about my newfound financial success. I remember sitting across from him, excited to share that I thought I was on my way to becoming a millionaire. My mind was racing with possibilities—how much money I could make, the things I could buy, the life I could live.

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My grandfather, who had always been a man of few words but infinite wisdom, listened quietly. After I finished my enthusiastic rant, he leaned forward and said something that forever changed my perspective on wealth.

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“To make a million dollars,” he said, “you either need to make $500 per hour for 40 hours a week or make $1,000 per hour for 20 hours a week.”

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It sounded so simple that I almost dismissed it, but I knew there was a deeper truth to what he was saying.

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That conversation shifted everything for me. It made me realize that not all tasks are created equal—and the value of my time wasn’t just about how many hours I worked but what I did with those hours.

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That conversation planted the seeds for the system I’ve used to make my time worth $1,000 per hour and more.

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2. The Wealth Formula: Time and Output Are Not Linear

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One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from that conversation with my grandfather is that time and output are not linear.

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Most people believe that the harder they work or the more hours they put in, the more money they’ll make. But that’s simply not true.

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The reality is that the value of your time is directly related to the output of the activities you engage in—not the effort or hours you spend.

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Not All Tasks Are Created Equal

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Some tasks yield immediate but small rewards. Others have the potential to generate massive returns over time.

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This is the fundamental difference between low-value and high-value tasks.

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If you want to make your time worth $1,000 per hour or more, you need to focus on the tasks that produce exponential outcomes.

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Let’s take a look at two examples:

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Low-Value Tasks:

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Replying to emails, running errands, and handling customer support might be necessary, but they won’t significantly impact your income or growth. These tasks usually have low, short-term rewards.

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High-Value Tasks:

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Building a product, refining your messaging, or creating content that reaches thousands of people—these are the kinds of tasks that can have a massive, long-term payoff. They’re harder, more strategic, and often require patience, but the rewards are exponentially greater.

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The Billionaire Mindset: Focus on Outcomes

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Look at billionaires like Elon Musk or Warren Buffet.

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Their time isn’t valuable because they work harder than anyone else—it’s valuable because of what they do with their time.

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Their activities produce enormous outcomes that impact millions of people.

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In fact, Elon Musk has a simple formula for measuring usefulness:

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Usefulness = Innovation Value x Number of People Impacted

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He focuses on tasks that create radical innovation and solve problems for millions of people. That’s what makes his time worth millions of dollars per hour.

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The key takeaway here is that to make your time worth more, you need to focus on tasks that have the highest potential for large-scale outcomes.

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3. Understanding the Time-Value Pyramid

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Now that you understand that not all tasks are created equal, it’s time to categorize your activities based on their value.

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I call this the Time-Value Pyramid. Every task you do can be placed into one of several categories based on its impact and long-term payoff.

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Time-Value Categories Explained:

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Here’s how to think about the different levels of tasks, from the lowest value to the highest value:

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Negative Value Tasks (-$100/hour):

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These are activities that are not only unproductive but counterproductive. They drain your energy, waste your time, and ultimately pull you away from your goals. Examples include procrastinating, excessive socializing when you should be working, or engaging in harmful habits like binge drinking when you have important work to do.

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Neutral Value Tasks ($0/hour):

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These activities don’t actively harm you, but they also don’t push you forward. Think of things like scrolling through social media, watching TV, or commuting. They fill time, but they don’t add value to your life or business.

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Low-Value Tasks ($10/hour):

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These are mundane, repetitive tasks that need to be done but don’t significantly impact your growth. Examples include replying to emails, handling paperwork, or performing basic customer service. They’re necessary, but they don’t move the needle.

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Mid-Value Tasks ($100/hour):

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Mid-value tasks contribute to revenue but won’t bring exponential growth. Examples include managing ads, overseeing operations, or handling client relationships. These tasks help run the business, but they don’t lead to significant breakthroughs.

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High-Value Tasks ($1,000/hour):

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These are tasks that create leverage. They allow you to accomplish more with less effort. Examples include creating content that reaches thousands of people, automating sales funnels, or developing new products. These tasks require strategic thinking and often have long-term payoffs.

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Ultra-High Value Tasks ($10,000-$100,000/hour):

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These tasks involve radical innovation, creating something entirely new, or building long-term partnerships that generate massive revenue. The payoff for these tasks can take months or even years, but when it comes, it’s substantial. Examples include developing a software platform, building a product with a competitive advantage, or creating a business with long-term strategic value.

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Time Delay for High-Value Tasks

The key to understanding the Time-Value Pyramid is that the higher the value of the task, the longer the delay before you see the reward. This is why many people shy away from high-value activities—they require patience and long-term thinking.

Let me break it down:

• $10/hour tasks might pay you immediately or within a week. You do the task, you get paid.
• $1,000/hour tasks take longer—maybe 90 to 180 days—to deliver results. For example, creating content or automating a sales process takes time to build but will generate passive income over months or years.
• $100,000/hour tasks could take 3–5 years to fully realize their value. These are tasks like creating a new product, building long-term partnerships, or launching a platform business that will generate revenue for years to come.

The point here is that if you want to maximize the value of your time, you need to focus on the tasks that have the highest payoff, even if that payoff takes years to materialize. This is how wealth is built over time—not through quick wins but through strategic, high-value activities.

4. Systematic Time Tracking: A Practical Method to Audit Your Time

Once you understand the different value levels of your tasks, the next step is to audit how you currently spend your time. This is where most people realize just how much time they’re wasting on low-value tasks.

How to Track Your Time

Here’s a simple, yet powerful system I’ve used to audit my time and increase my productivity. It involves tracking every 30 minutes of your day for one week. Yes, it’s tedious, but it’s the only way to get an accurate picture of how you’re using your time.

Step 1: Track Every 30 Minutes for One Week

For one week every quarter (or every month if you want faster results), track every 30 minutes of your day. Use a simple spreadsheet or an app to log what you’re doing, and set an alarm to go off every half hour to remind you.

When the alarm goes off, quickly write down what you did for the last 30 minutes. Don’t try to justify or change your behavior—just observe and record. You’ll be surprised at how much time you spend on things that don’t really matter.

Step 2: Categorize Your Activities

At the end of the week, review your log and categorize each activity into one of the Time-Value buckets we discussed earlier: Negative Value, Neutral, Low-Value, Mid-Value, High-Value, or Ultra-High Value.

Step 3: Calculate Your Average Hourly Rate

Once you’ve categorized your tasks, it’s time to calculate your average hourly rate. Multiply the time spent on each type of activity by the corresponding value. For example, if you spent 10 hours on $10/hour tasks and 5 hours on $1,000/hour tasks, calculate the total earnings potential for each category.

Then, average these out to get your true hourly rate. This number will give you a clear picture of how much your time is currently worth based on how you spend it.

Step 4: Identify Time-Wasters

Now that you’ve calculated your hourly rate, you’ll likely see where you’re wasting time. Look for the low-value and neutral tasks that are eating up your day. These are the activities you need to eliminate or delegate in order to free up time for higher-value work.

The Reality of Time Auditing

Be warned: auditing your time will be uncomfortable. You’ll see just how much time you spend on distractions or tasks that don’t move the needle. But this is the first step to reclaiming your time and increasing its value. You can’t fix what you don’t measure, so commit to tracking your time for at least one week.

5. Delegate, Delete, Double Down: A Proven Framework to Boost Time Value

Now that you’ve audited your time, it’s time to take action. The framework I use is simple: Delegate, Delete, Double Down. This process helps you systematically eliminate low-value tasks, free up your time, and focus on what matters most.

Step 1: Delete Low-Value Tasks

The first thing you need to do is look at all the tasks you identified that are below your current hourly rate. Ask yourself, What would happen if I stopped doing this?

In many cases, you’ll find that some tasks don’t really need to be done at all. Deleting these tasks frees up time for more valuable activities.

Real-World Example:

For instance, I used to spend hours each week replying to non-essential emails. Once I realized this was a $10/hour task, I set up auto-replies and FAQs, and simply stopped responding to certain types of inquiries. The result? I freed up hours each week to focus on higher-value work, and my business didn’t suffer for it.

Step 2: Delegate What You Can’t Delete

There will always be tasks that are necessary, but not worth your time. These tasks might not be high-value, but they’re critical to keeping your business or life running smoothly. That’s where delegation comes in.

The key to successful delegation is identifying tasks that need to be done, but don’t require your unique skill set or expertise. When you delegate these tasks to someone else, you free up your time for the activities that only you can do—those high-value tasks that drive real results.

How to Choose the Right Tasks to Delegate:

Here’s a simple way to think about what to delegate:

1. Tasks that take too much time but don’t move the needle:
2. These are the things you have to do, but they’re not directly tied to revenue generation or business growth. Examples include managing your inbox, basic customer service, scheduling meetings, and administrative tasks.
3. Tasks that require specialized skills you don’t have:
4. Sometimes, the best way to improve efficiency is to hand off tasks that would take you too long to learn or perfect. For example, hiring a freelancer to handle graphic design or a marketing agency to run your ads. These are important, but they can be done better or faster by someone else.
5. Tasks that are repeatable and consistent:
6. Anything that you find yourself doing repeatedly—like bookkeeping, answering the same types of questions, or posting on social media—can and should be systematized and delegated. It’s a waste of your time to handle these yourself.

How to Find the Right People to Delegate To:

1. Hiring Virtual Assistants:
2. One of the best ways to start delegating is by hiring a virtual assistant (VA). VAs can handle a wide variety of low- to mid-value tasks, from inbox management to data entry. The cost of hiring a VA is often much lower than you’d expect, and the time savings can be enormous.
3. Outsourcing to Freelancers:
4. For more specialized tasks like graphic design, copywriting, or marketing, you can use platforms like Upwork or Fiverr to find skilled freelancers. The key is to identify where your weaknesses lie and bring in experts who can perform these tasks more efficiently than you.
5. Automating Through Technology:
6. Delegation isn’t just about people. There are countless tools that can automate tasks for you, saving you time. From email autoresponders to social media scheduling tools, automation is a powerful form of delegation.

The Importance of Delegation in Increasing Time Value:

By delegating these lower-value tasks, you’ll free up hours in your week that can now be spent on high-leverage activities. This shift in focus will naturally increase your average hourly rate, because instead of spending your time on $10/hour tasks, you’ll be spending it on $1,000/hour tasks.

Step 3: Double Down on High-Value Tasks

Now that you’ve deleted unnecessary tasks and delegated what you can, it’s time to double down on the high-value tasks that will truly drive results. These are the activities that increase your earning potential, build long-term value, and create opportunities for exponential growth.

How to Identify High-Value Tasks:

High-value tasks are those that either have a long-term payoff or a high leverage effect, meaning they allow you to accomplish more with less effort. Let’s break down a few key examples:

1. Creating or Refining a Product or Service:
2. Whether you’re developing a new product or improving an existing one, this is a high-leverage activity. A well-crafted product has the potential to generate significant revenue over time.
3. Content Creation:
4. Writing blog posts, recording podcasts, or creating videos is a $1,000/hour activity. Content has the ability to reach thousands or even millions of people, driving traffic, building your audience, and increasing sales—all from a single piece of content.
5. Automating Systems and Processes:
6. Automating parts of your business (like sales funnels, onboarding processes, or customer service) allows you to earn revenue without being actively involved in every transaction. Automation turns your business into a machine that can operate without constant manual input, and that’s a massive time saver.
7. Building Strategic Partnerships:
8. Relationships are the cornerstone of business success. Building partnerships with people and companies that align with your goals is a $10,000/hour activity because the right partnership can generate consistent, long-term revenue for both parties.
9. Long-Term Strategy and Vision:
10. Thinking long-term and planning out the future of your business is perhaps one of the most valuable tasks you can engage in. It’s often easy to get caught up in daily operations, but taking the time to step back, think strategically, and make high-level decisions about where your business is headed is what separates successful entrepreneurs from the rest.

6. The Time Lag of High-Value Activities: Why Patience Is Key

One of the most challenging aspects of focusing on high-value tasks is the time lag between when you do the work and when you see the results. Many people are tempted to revert to low-value tasks because those provide immediate gratification. But, if you want to make your time worth $1,000 per hour or more, you need to be willing to wait for the payoff.

Understanding the Time Lag:

Let’s take a closer look at the time it takes for different types of tasks to yield results:

• $10/hour tasks:
• These provide almost instant results. For example, you send an invoice, and you get paid within a few days. There’s no time delay, but the payoff is small.
• $100/hour tasks:
• These might take a few weeks to show results. For example, managing ads or nurturing client relationships can generate revenue, but the impact may take 30-60 days to become apparent.
• $1,000/hour tasks:
• The payoff for high-value tasks like creating a new product or automating a system often takes 3–6 months. You put in the work today, and you might not see the full reward until a few quarters down the road.
• $10,000-$100,000/hour tasks:
• The highest-value activities—like building strategic partnerships, launching a new business venture, or developing a competitive advantage—may not pay off for several years. However, when they do, the rewards are massive.

The Importance of Long-Term Thinking:

High-value activities require patience and long-term thinking. If you’re constantly chasing short-term rewards, you’ll limit your potential. The most successful people are those who can delay gratification and focus on the big picture. They’re willing to plant seeds today that won’t bear fruit for months or even years.

7. Incremental Progress: How to Increase Your Hourly Rate Over Time

Making your time worth $1,000 per hour doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual process that requires discipline, iteration, and constant optimization. The key is to aim for incremental progress—small, consistent improvements over time that compound into massive gains.

Here’s How to Do It:

Set a Target Rate for Each Quarter:

Let’s say your current average hourly rate is $250, and you want to reach $500 per hour in the next quarter. Set that as your target. Now, every time you track your time, aim to spend more hours on $500/hour tasks and fewer on $10 or $100/hour tasks.

Review Your Time Quarterly (or Monthly):

After every quarter (or even every month if you want faster results), do a one-week time audit as we discussed earlier. Look at how your time was spent, identify any low-value tasks that crept back in, and refine your focus on high-leverage activities.

Focus on Small Wins:

Remember, you don’t need to go from $250/hour to $1,000/hour overnight. Focus on small wins. If you can increase your average hourly rate by just $100 per quarter, you’ll be well on your way to reaching $1,000 per hour in a year or two.

Example of Incremental Progress:

One client I worked with started by focusing on content creation—a $1,000/hour activity. Over the course of 6 months, they gradually cut back on low-value tasks (like scheduling meetings and responding to emails) and shifted their focus toward building a digital course. By the end of the year, they had increased their average hourly rate from $200 to over $800, simply by prioritizing high-leverage tasks and being disciplined in their time management.

8. Networking Up: Surrounding Yourself with High-Value People

The final key to making your time worth $1,000 per hour or more is surrounding yourself with people who are already operating at a higher level. The people you associate with have a direct impact on your mindset, habits, and ultimately, your success.

Why Your Network Matters:

There’s a saying: “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” If you’re spending time with people who are stuck in low-value tasks or short-term thinking, it will be hard for you to break out of that cycle. But if you surround yourself with entrepreneurs, business owners, and thought leaders who are already achieving the results you want, you’ll naturally start to think, act, and operate at their level.

How to Connect with High-Level People:

1. Attend Industry Events:
2. Conferences, workshops, and industry meetups are great places to meet people who are operating at a higher level. Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself and start building relationships with those who are where you want to be.
3. Join Mastermind Groups:
4. Masterminds are groups of like-minded individuals who come together to share ideas, challenges, and solutions. By joining a mastermind, you can tap into the collective knowledge of people who are already doing $1,000/hour work.
5. Seek Out Mentors:
6. A mentor can accelerate your growth by sharing their experience and helping you avoid common mistakes. Look for someone who has achieved the level of success you’re aiming for and see if they’re open to mentoring you.
7. Invest in Coaching:
8. If you’re serious about leveling up, consider hiring a coach who specializes in your field. A good coach will hold you accountable, challenge your thinking, and push you to operate at a higher level.

9. Key Takeaways and Final Steps

Recap of the Process:

Let’s quickly summarize the steps you need to take to make your time worth $1,000 per hour or more:

1. Track and Audit Your Time:
2. Start by doing a time audit to understand how you’re currently spending your time and categorize your tasks based on their value.
3. Delete Low-Value Tasks:
4. Eliminate any tasks that aren’t moving the needle. Freeing up your time is the first step to increasing its value.
5. Delegate What You Can’t Delete:
6. If a task is necessary but below your target hourly rate, delegate it to someone else.
7. Double Down on High-Value Tasks:
8. Focus on the activities that have the highest potential for long-term impact, even if the payoff is delayed.
9. Be Patient and Think Long-Term:
10. High-value work takes time to pay off, but the rewards are worth it. Stay focused on the big picture.
11. Network Up:
12. Surround yourself with people who are operating at a higher level and learn from them.

10. Bonus: Get Access to My Time-Tracking Tool

To help you put everything you’ve learned into action, I’ve developed a tool that I personally use to track and optimize my time. This tool will help you categorize your tasks, calculate your average hourly rate, and systematically increase the value of your time.

Join My Flywheel Group

If you want to go even deeper, I invite you to join my Flywheel group. In this community, I provide in-depth training, resources, and live support to help you implement these strategies and maximize the value of your time.

Final Thoughts: The Infinite Game of Wealth Building

The journey to making your time worth $1,000 per hour or more isn’t just about quick wins—it’s about playing the long game. The most successful people in the world understand that wealth is built over time, through consistent, high-value work. They focus on the tasks that matter, they surround themselves with the right people, and they always look for ways to optimize how they spend their time.

This guide gives you the roadmap to do the same.

Remember: the goal isn’t just to work harder. It’s to work smarter, optimize your time, and build a life of financial freedom by increasing the value of every hour you spend.

Now it’s your turn. Start tracking your time, eliminate the low-value tasks, and focus on what matters most.

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