Have you ever thought about the value of a minute of your time? Think about how productive you could be if you aimed to do something of value with each minute of your time. As I work to try to get more value out of my day, I started thinking about how I not only spend the hours of my time but the minutes of my time as well.

Just to set up my punchline to this post, I explored pay by the minute of some high value individuals. Someone that makes $100,000 per year for a salary actually costs a company about $1 per minute of their time. Brian Gallagher, President of United Way Worldwide made $982,768 in 2008. That is almost $10 per minute for his time.

Lebron James averaged just under 39 minutes per game in the 79 games that he played last season for the Miami Heat. He was paid $14.5 million. Thus, the Miami Heat paid him about $4700 per minute of game action for his time. Obviously, they are paying this because of the value he brings to the organization rather than paying him by the minute, but it is interesting to note how irrational it actually sounds to pay someone almost $5000 to spend a minute of their time doing what they love.

I am working on ways to be most productive, but at the same time, I don’t want to devalue the opportunity to share time with others – whether friends, family, coworkers, prospects, or network connections. I also want to learn and stay up-to-date with my time. Is it worth reading a certain blog regularly that might take 2 minutes of your time? What about watching a funny youtube clip that lasts 3 minutes? How about reading that book that “could change your life” that might take 500 minutes to read? Or should you go see an interesting speaker that is in town to talk for 45 minutes?

As a business owner, I often think of situations and dispute resolutions in terms of the greatest value of people’s time. For example, if I have my whole team meet for 15 minutes, it could cost me well over $100. Is the meeting worth it? Does so-and-so need to be there?

As an interesting thought, if you got up one minute earlier for your entire life, you would gain roughly 3 months on your working career. Not a bad start, but where do you draw the line? Should you never sleep? Of course you should…sleep allows you to get the most out of your minutes.

So often you hear people say that they are “busy” or “don’t have enough hours in the day.” There are 10,080 minutes in a week. You can accomplish quite a lot in that amount of time. You have to start by prioritizing.

In fact, my biggest downfall is that I don’t say “no” often enough. Ultimately, I end up not meeting others expectations because I’m overbooked and distracted by where I’m supposed to be next. Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett are both famous for saying that each of their successes are the product of knowing when and how to say “no.” Ultimately freeing up more minutes to give to projects and people that matter most in achieving their goals. I’m working on downsizing my life (“rightsizing” for those of you in the corporate world) to pursue my passions more completely. Over the past year, I’ve become more aware of the minutes I waste in pursuit of things that I’m not truly passionate about.

“Do you have a minute?” “This will only take a minute.” Saying yes to these statements is so easy. Say “no” if you need to. Trying to do more is not how you get more done; you can not create more minutes in your day. Doing less is how you get more done.

What would it mean to give someone else a minute of your time? I say this because if you are willing to give them your time, then you should be fully present for that minute. If they aren’t worth the minute, then be honest and tell them “no” ahead of time.

With that, thank you for taking a minute of your time to read my thoughts. One request – Go spend a minute figuring out what you are passionate about and one more deciding what one thing you can do in the next week – that takes 30 minutes or less – in absolute pursuit of that passion. Let me know how I can help – that is a passion of mine – helping others pursue things they are passionate about. I plan to keep writing about other things I’m passionate about in upcoming blogs.

Steve Jobs: When asked what is the thing he is most proud of what he and Apple has created, this was his answer: “I’m as proud of what we DON’T do as I am of what we do.”

Warren Buffet: When asked for the No. 1 key to his success, this is his consistent answer, “For every 100 great opportunities that are brought to me, I say ‘NO’ 99 times.”