The greatest of all cheats (or self deception) is the concept that time is a free commodity - time is of course the most valuable commodity we have as we know for certain that it is going to run out..
This manifests itself at every level (both within the business and in a lot of what we are bombarded with). Posit the daily forum-style postings such as 'do your own SEO for free' or 'I do my own accounts - it costs me nothiing'.If this is done in office time then you should have a fairly good idea of the actual cost of your time - in terms of cash and opportunity cost - whereas if you really have nothing better to do on a Sunday evening than trawl through key words or wade through figures (or, more disturbingly, if you consider this your hobby!) then you might possibly describe it as free. However for most of us 'spare time' is actually more valuable than work time for the simple reason that we have less of it.
From my own perspective, I have to date spent about 100 hours on this project, some of which was at the expense of my former employer (cue big argument - OK it was between the Bank Holidays, when my only role was to be there 'just in case'. In many cases where they are seeking redundancies employers will overlook and even support this activity). The rest was spent in either what would normally be free time or in 'other work' time (more in future posts) which I have confessed above can't be described as free - I guess I will put it down as investment in capital - hopefully to be recouped on sale of the business!
For practical purposes, I will cost my face-to-face time at the same rate of my lecturing earnings, which seems a realistic benchmark.
A greater crime, of course, is to under-value other people's time. I think we will revisit this whole time/money theme a few more times!
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