You know what you charge. You probably don't know what an hour of your time is actually worth to the business — and that number, once you have it, changes what you're willing to spend an evening doing.
Work out the number
Rough is fine. Take your annual profit — what the business actually makes, not turnover — and divide it by the hours you genuinely work, including evenings and weekends.
Most owners are startled by two things: how low it is compared to what they charge, and how much lower it gets once the unpaid hours go into the denominator.
The version that really lands: calculate it a second way. Take your hourly charge-out rate for actual paid work. That's what an hour is worth when you're delivering. Now compare it to the hours you spend on admin, which are worth nothing directly. Every hour moved from the second column to the first is worth the full difference.
Why this changes decisions
Without the number, every decision about your time is emotional. You do the invoicing yourself because it feels wasteful to pay someone. You spend an evening wrestling with a website because a designer seems expensive.
With the number, those become arithmetic. If your delivery hour is worth £60 and you spend four hours a month on something someone would do for £80, you're losing money doing it yourself — before counting the evening you didn't get back.
The three categories of your time
Time that earns directly
Doing the work customers pay for. Highest value, and the thing you should protect most fiercely.
Time that earns indirectly
Quoting, following up, marketing, building relationships. Not billable, but it generates the billable work. Undervalued by most owners and usually the first thing squeezed — which is why quiet months follow busy ones.
Time that just has to happen
Invoicing, filing, records, compliance. Necessary, worth nothing directly, and where most of the recoverable hours are hiding.
Rough out how your week splits across those three. Most owners find far too much in the third category and far too little in the second — and the second is what actually grows a business.
What to do with the answer
Set a threshold
Decide the number below which you shouldn't be doing something yourself. If your time is worth £50 an hour, anything you can offload for less than that — and that doesn't need you specifically — is worth offloading.
Judge tools by hours, not price
A £30 a month tool that saves you two hours a month is cheap at almost any hourly rate. Most small businesses evaluate software on price alone and never do the second half of the sum. See measuring return properly.
Protect the second category
Because it's not urgent, indirect-earning time is what gets dropped when you're busy. That's precisely backwards — it's what fills next month.
Where the recoverable hours actually are
Almost always in category three, and almost always in writing and repetition — invoices, quotes, chasers, routine emails, records. That's why the tooling conversation has changed: these tasks used to only be reducible by hiring someone. Now a decent chunk of them can be compressed directly.
If your time is worth £50 an hour and you recover five hours a week, that's £250 a week of capacity — before counting the work you win because you finally had time to follow up. See how many hours are realistically available.
The version of this that matters most
There's a non-financial calculation too. An hour spent on invoicing at 9pm isn't just worth less than a delivery hour — it's an hour that was supposed to be yours. Some hours are worth more than their rate, and it's worth being deliberate about protecting those as well.
Want to know where your hours are going?
We usually start by working out what's actually eating the week — before suggesting anything. AskColin works with small businesses on exactly this — low-cost monthly support with one-to-one help whenever you need it. No jargon, no hard sell, and we'll tell you honestly if we can't help.
Have a free, no-obligation chatFrequently asked questions
How do I work out what my time is worth?
Take annual profit — not turnover — and divide by the hours you genuinely work, including evenings and weekends. Also compare your charge-out rate for paid delivery work against the hours spent on admin, which earn nothing directly.
Why does knowing your hourly value matter?
Without it, every decision about your time is emotional — you do the invoicing yourself because paying someone feels wasteful. With it, those become arithmetic: if an hour is worth £60 and someone would do the task for £20, doing it yourself loses money.
What are the three types of business owner time?
Time that earns directly (the paid work), time that earns indirectly (quoting, following up, marketing — undervalued and usually squeezed first), and time that just has to happen (invoicing, filing, compliance). Most recoverable hours hide in the third.
How should I judge whether a tool is worth it?
By hours saved, not price. A £30 a month tool saving two hours is cheap at almost any hourly rate. Most small businesses evaluate software on cost alone and never do the second half of the calculation.