The Hour Glass Illusion

Defining your worth

You get paid $200 for an hour of your time. If you were the one deciding what your worth was, would you agree with that valuation? Do you think you should be earning more, or should you be earning less? How do you define as a physician what an hour of your time is worth? As you become more seasoned, should you ask for increased hourly rates? It’s a difficult predicament based on what we perceive as our value and what someone is willing to pay. Does our work justify charging $1000 per hour? It might if you market your skills to those who see value in that. Who decides what we should be earning? These are all questions you should be asking yourselves when looking at exchanging your time for money. This is the trap you can fall into when a higher hourly rate can cause you to easily give up your most limited resource; time.

The time trap

One more extra shift, one more extra patient, one more committe meeting. We think we are serving others, which we are. However, we forget to serve ourselves at the same time. In the short tim,e that extra shift will bring in extra cash but take away 12 hours of your day. Seeing that extra patient may provide extra RVU’s but now you’re late for a family dinner or missing an important event for your kids. You have to constantly evaluate what you are missing out on when committing extra time to something else. There is always an inherent opportunity cost to doing something, and you have to consider what the cost is. In certain situations where you don’t have many other commitments other than work, then it may be worthwhile to pick up extra shifts to accelerate your wealth building with the extra cash you make.

Leverage vs Labor

During our training, we are instilled with a strong work ethic. We’re told that putting in time, effort, and energy will always lead to perseverance. What we’re not taught about is leverage and how we can get that multiple factor without investing more energy. The true key to freedom is being able to leverage the skills we already have to earn an income without needing to be present. That is the ultimate leverage of time for money. Upfront, these types of things may take some starting momentum to get going, but once they're up and running, they require minimal effort and bandwidth. When we can stop exchanging our time for money, we are truly free without the shackles of an hourly rate or patient quota.

In conclusion,

Time is your most valuable asset because it is finite. It may seem like you have a lot of it, but it goes by faster than you think. Preserve your time by leveraging your skills to your advantage.

A.K, MD