Hey, what's up everyone? Anton Anderson here. In today's video I got kind of a unique backdrop as you can see. I'm in front of Sterling's Mobile Barber and Hair Salon. You'll notice it's not your average hair studio. It's actually on the first floor, thanks so much, on the first floor of our office building.

So I got my hair cut yesterday as you can tell here. And I had an interesting story about it. I was at the gym this morning, which is actually also, you can see Broadway Athletic Club right there. It's also a in our office building as well.

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But I was at the gym this morning and the guy I've gotten to know pretty well over the last two years commented on the haircut and I said, "Yeah, I went to Sterling's downstairs". He goes, "Oh, I looked at that place, but it's $42 for a haircut". And I said, "Where do you go"? He said, "Oh, somewhere up close, north of here, but it's only $26 for a haircut. Why would you pay $42 to get your hair cut"? I said, "So how far is the place you go from your house or the office"? He said, "Well, it's only about 12 minutes. Why? I said, "So you're driving 24 minutes plus probably taking another two or three minutes to find parking somewhere to spend $26 for a haircut rather than avoiding wasting 30 minutes to spend $42 for a haircut. And am I understanding that correctly"? He said, "Well, yeah, I mean $42 for a haircut, what a waste of money. I basically just saved", what's the math on that? $16, $18. I just saved $18.

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I said, "You saved $18 spending 30 minutes getting in your car, driving around, having to look for a parking spot to get an average haircut. Does does that really make sense"? Would you spend 30 minutes to save $18, and obviously he would. So here's what I'm showing you right now. Say hi to everybody in the office here. That time that it just took me, what's up Michael.

That time that it just took me to walk from Sterling's Barbershop upstairs was a minute and 30 seconds. So let me do the math that this guy in the gym was basically saying. He was saying, let's see if that sets off. All right? Yep.

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So yeah, he was basically saying, so I would spend 30 minutes to save $18. Now I don't know how much he was making a year. I don't know how much he would value an hour of his time or 30 minutes of his time.

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But here's what I want people to think about. How much do you make right now a year and what actually is an hour of your time worth? And also, how much do you want to be making a year? And in that situation, how much would an hour of your time be worth?

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So if you do the math, if somebody is making $125,000 a year, their time's basically worth $60 an hour. So in that scenario, if he was making $125,000 a year, his time is actually worth $30 for 30 minutes, whereas he gave up 30 minutes of his time for $18. So he actually lost money the way I look at it.

Now, if somebody making or wants to be making $500,000 a year, their hour is worth $240, $240 an hour. So here's something I want people to think about is when we feel like we're just too busy to invest the time into something that we want to do, either personal development or professional development, we need to look at where is my time actually going? This is something that you'll see really successful people are doing extremely well. They're always analyzing, where is my time going? What is not a good use of my time?

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The easiest thing is to get rid of everything that's not a good use of your time. Driving to get your hair cut is not a good use of your time. Other things that are not a good use of time. Going grocery shopping. I don't know how many people spend their time going grocery shopping, but if you think about actually the reward of doing that activity, it's incredibly unproductive. Most of us have to get in a car, drive to a grocery store, walk around the aisles, put stuff in a cart, checkout, drive home, carry things up from the car into the house. A simple company like Instacart, if you have no idea what that is, it's an app you can download for free. You pay somebody minimum wage and they'll happily drive all over your town, collect groceries from multiple places, drive them to your house, take them up to your door. You can pay somebody minimum wage to do that. So I would happily pay somebody $9 or $15 depending on where you live to save an hour of my time and pay them to do it.

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What else? Meal delivery. How much time do people spend preparing their meals? Thinking about what to, not only buying it, but thinking about what to buy, thinking about what to cook. So there's great companies. Now, I'm in San Diego. We've got good ones like Thistle, what else? California Meals. There's all Fresh and Clean or Fresh Delivery, Freshly. There's all types of great meal delivery services where you don't have to cook your own meals, you don't have to clean up the dishes. It's all healthy, done for you.

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Also errands, if you've looked at something like a Task Rabbit, Task Rabbit where you can pay somebody minimum wage to drive to Home Depot and pick up the new hammer you need or the new screen doors you need, drive and take your car to get the annual checkup. All of these things, you could pay somebody minimum wage to do these things.

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So when you're thinking next time, I would love to get better at that. I'd love to spend more time doing that, but I'm just too busy. First of all, you've got to ask yourself, where is my time going and what is a waste of my time? What is a waste of my time? That's the easiest to cut out.

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Then once you go through that level, the next is what's a good use of my time but not a great use of my time? An example of that is what I refer to is just in time, just in time communication. Kind of we were taught like you get to work or you get to your desk, you open up your emails and then they come in. Your phone is right there. If somebody wants to call you, they call you and you answer, just in time. You get and email and you respond, you get a phone call and you respond.

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When you're trying to do something that's really productive, what you need to do is get rid of the just in time and you need to cluster these types of activities. So when you get to the office, spend 30 minutes reviewing all the emails, then shut your email down. Don't even look at your email until lunchtime. Same thing with your phone. Shut it off, put it on silent. Then spend 30 minutes, maybe right before lunch, go through the voicemails, return the calls you need to call, return the emails you need to return.

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What you'll find is that a lot of times the phone calls and the emails, they'll take care of themselves. Somebody will figure out, someone else that's answering their phones just in time. So it actually allows you to get deeper into the zone much quicker and allows you to kind of cluster your activities so you can be focused on the most important things when you want to be focused on those and then cluster out your time. So I would do it right when I get to the office, right before lunch and then I do it again right before I go home. And that's the time that I'm allowing myself to do emails and to do phone calls. The rest of my time I'm focusing on what's the priority that I want to be focusing on to get better as a professional, to get better as a person, and that's where I'm investing my time and energy.

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The thing I think this is so important to understand is, or the reason I think this is so important to understand, is that time is really the only asset that all of us have that is equal. Time is equal for all of us. We've all got the 24 hours, but what's not equal is the results of the time, the distribution curve. Distribution curve of time is pretty much set for all of us. What's not equal is the distribution curve of production, the distribution curve of revenue, the distribution curve of results, the distribution curve of value that we are bringing our clients.

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Why can some people have such a hard time doing 40,000 or 50,000 a year, whereas other people will do 400,000 a year? Distribution curve is completely eradicate. The only reason why some people struggle to do the first and other people do the second easily is it's just a difference in the choices on how you're spending your time over an accelerated, or I should say over a long period of time.

So an example of this, let's say ultimately this is a five year timeframe. Now, my friend in the gym I was talking to this morning, he saved $18 by going to Super Cuts. But he spent 30 minutes of his time driving around, looking for a parking spot, walking. Whereas I spent actually no time because I went yesterday on my way home from the office, stopped there and then went home. So he spent 30 minutes of his time. So yes, he saved $18 that I spent, but this 30 minutes multiplied over all of those types of activities, grocery shopping, meal delivery, errands, haircuts, how you invest your time, all of those things add up and they are maybe only a little bit different today compared to yesterday.

How did I use that extra 30 minutes? It probably will make a little bit of a difference. Maybe I'm recording this blog video as an example. This is 30 minutes I wouldn't have had if I went to Super Cuts. So I get to do this and talk with you a little bit.

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But this investment of 30 minutes over a week by week by week and multiplied over a significant period of time such as five years is what makes the difference between where I will be and the results that I will experience and the results that I would have experienced if I didn't get this disciplined with my investment of time and energy. Does that make sense?

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So it's just a little difference today, a 30 minute blog video I get to do, but this type of activity over a five year period will be the difference between me hitting my goals and me not hitting my goals or the difference between somebody that's making $125,000 a year versus $500,000 a year.

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So think about all of these things as you're kind of analyzing your priorities. If you do ever find yourself wrestling with that, like oh, I wish I could invest more time and more energy in that, but I just, I can't find the time, get serious about where is my time actually going? And out of where is my time going, what activities can I cut out to free up this time? 30 minutes for my haircut, hour and five minutes doing grocery shopping, 20 or 30 minutes doing meal prep a day, running around doing errands. You can easily find five to 10 hours of additional time each and every week. Now you look at that 20 to 40 hours a month, 200 to 240 to whatever, 480 hours a year. Multiply that. Now we're starting to see the difference in the return on that investment of time and energy.

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So that's all I wanted to share with you today. I hope you found it helpful. I look forward to seeing you again on the next video.