Thursday, March 30, 2006

Billable Hours

Alexandra Stoddard has some excellent thoughts on the value of time versus money. As someone who works as a homemaker, and squeezes in time to work from home as a lawyer who must record every tenth of an hour in time spent, I found this essay to be quite on point! I have taken the liberty of changing some of it to first person, while she is actually writing about her husband:

"Because their job often 'prices' them at a per-hour dollar amount, people will put this same price tag on their nonwork hours. They begin to question everything, asking themselves, Is this worth my time? As a result many people hire workers to do the household chores that they might actually enjoy doing. . .

If I make a salad that takes an hour to prepare, allowing to me wonder and reflect as I enjoy the . . pleasures of chopping and dicing. . .why should I rush and diminish my pleasure in the experience, or delegate the task to someone else? I could be working, but one is no replacement for the other. . .

If I had been thinking about the dollar value of this time I would have hired someone else to do the work, but I would be giving away something I really enjoy doing. I am paid substantially for my time serving clients as their lawyer. If I were to apply my hourly rate to my free time, I'd never do any gardening. I'd be sitting at my desk working nonstop. I'd lose all the simple ways I enjoy living every day. . ."

excerpted from"Working with Grace" from Gracious Living in a New World

1 comment:

Cherish the Home said...

I've read several Alexandra Stoddard books! You have to look past some of the new age stuff she puts in but if you can do that then her books are delightful to read! (o:

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