As a ladypreneur, I am hard working, ambitious, disciplined, passionate, willing to take risks, and driven by new opportunity. If you are a ladypreneur, like myself, then you know that sometimes “life happens” while you’re experiencing a life of incredible achievements that can make you feel an unsettling feeling of emptiness or inadequacy.
A few things I’ve learned along the way, as a ladypreneur, is that you must create a framework for goal setting, assessing opportunity risk, and focusing activities daily and weekly so that you “can have it all.”
To know your worth, in my opinion, consists of not just one thing, but having set goals to help you live your best. And that means getting enough sleep, eating healthy, working out, and spending time with loved ones.
There are 168 hours in a week, what you decide to do with those hours is the trick. The four categories of time blocks throughout the week is Sleep, Fitness (as I recently rediscovered), Family/Relationships, and Work.
SLEEP. According to science, people require eight hours of sleep on average to live and function well and stay healthy. However, there are a rare few entrepreneurs (1%) that can operate on less than 6 hours of sleep each night. This is an example of how I use this block scheduling framework to get the necessary sleep for my health and optimize productivity.
Monday-Tuesday: Wake at 7 AM, Sleep by 12 AM
Wednesday: Wake at 6:30 AM, Sleep by 10:30 PM
Thursday: Wake at 7 AM, Sleep by 11 AM
Friday: Wake at 7 AM, Sleep by 12:30 AM
Saturday: Wake up naturally 7:30 AM or 8 AM, Sleep when tired
Sunday: Wake up 7 AM or 8 AM, Go to bed by 10 PM
All this adds up to a weekly total of about 46 hours of sleep (average of 6.5 hours/night).
The running balance in the time bank following this block is: 168 – 46 = 122 hours
FIT MIND and BODY. Increasing your mental endurance and capacity through the consumption of thought provoking content, personal development/self awareness, etc. on a consistent basis. It also means flushing out toxins through a routine exercise regime, eating organic or healthier foods, and standing more than you sit throughout the work day (which I use my FitBit religiously to remind me to “get up” and walk around). At a minimum, try to have 6 hours each week focused on physical exercise.
The running balance in the time bank following this block is 122 – 6 = 116 hours
RELATIONSHIPS. Depending where you are in your phase of life, whether you are single, in a committed relationship, have children, helping take care of grandchildren, or have aging parents, as a ladypreneur you will perceive this block of time differently. If you want to keep flourishing in your life, this block of time is critical to “having it all.” Rarely does the support network and family of a ladypreneur gets the credit it deserves. One thing I have discovered is that being present without distraction for even just a few hours each day can work wonders for key relationships over time. For me it’s helping my daughter out with the grand kids throughout the week, which allows me to spend quality time with them. But I also make sure to spend time with my husband. Here’s an example:
Monday – Thursday: Focused family time 5 PM to 8:30 PM
Friday: Date night 6 PM to 12:00 AM (What can I say? I’m a karaoke singer, lol!)
Saturday: Family and friends day from 9 AM, I also digital unplug the rest of the day!
Sunday: Personal time: Family time 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM Personal time or date night 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
This adds up to a weekly total of about 46 hours of focused family and friends time.
The running balance in the time bank following this block is: 116 – 46 = 70
MANAGING OPPORTUNITY COST. This is the final time block of work. Using this simple theoretical example of a week this means you have 70 awesome hours to dedicate and focus on your wealth, your business! I know that there are many other formulations out there for figuring out your worth, but this is one of the easiest calculations if you’re going to include the other three blocks in this equation.
Depending on what economic value you wish to drive in the way of net income for lifestyle and investments you have to quantify what your time is worth by dividing it by 70 hours. For example, if someone wants to make $100,000 per year, we’re going to assume they work 48 weeks/year with four weeks of vacation.
$100,000 divided into 70 = $1428.57
$1428.57 divided into 48 = $29.75 per hour
This means that in any given 10 hour work day you must average $297.62 worth of net value/income.
$500,000 divided into 70 = $7142.86
$7142.86 divided into 48 = $148.81 per hour
This means that in any given 10 hour work day you must average $1488.10 worth of net value/income.
Of course, you will have to calculate business expenses, as well, in order to help figure out an amount that you wish to make for a 10 hour work day. You must eliminate or delegate all lower tasks today to ensure that you are only doing activities with roughly (depending on the goal) $300/hr or $1500/hr potential. I will be looking deeper into this subject of knowing your worth in another upcoming blog post, Knowing Your Worth: Part Two.
To all the ladypreneurs, good luck!
Gina E. Maxwell