Time is the greatest asset a small-business owner can have.
But when you're working around the clock on so many important tasks to keep your business running, you're often left with very little time or energy to tend to the smaller things like household chores and administrative work.
Laura Vanderkam, author of "I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time," studied the time logs of more than 140 women with kids who earn at least six figures to find out how they fit everything into 168 hours a week.
"It's about having a good sense of value of your time and that, as a small-business owner, you're trying to grow your business and grow the revenue, and thinking of things that free up your time and free up your mental energy as investments in your business," she says.
You can outsource pretty much anything these days; you just have to use your imagination and some good judgment to figure out what you should and shouldn't delegate to someone else. Vanderkam says the key is figuring out how you value your time.
Since most people work around 40 to 50 hours a week, to really get the most out of that time small-business owners need to focus on the things that are most likely to grow their business. And on the home front, what's left over should be quality time spent rejuvenating and doing other things of value like spending time with friends and family.
Vanderkam suggests that when determining whether you should outsource a task, ask yourself, "How much time does this task take?" and "How much do I hate it?" Another helpful method is figuring out the monetary value of your time and comparing that with the cost of the service.
If you make $45,000 annually and work 40 hours a week (that's 2,080 work hours a year), that means your time is potentially worth about $22 an hour ($45,000 divided by 2,080).
So if you really hate grocery shopping and you can outsource it to someone else for $20 an hour, what are you waiting for? Outsource that chore!
Here are some of the most valuable ways you can buy back your time.