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Treasuries – bonds issued by our government – have also had quite a run as investors have fled to safety. If interest rates go down, the value of the underlying note goes up. Interest rates are incredibly low right now. How much lower can they go?

Even if you hold it in cash, savings accounts are paying a paltry amount of interest right now. It would take you about 144 years to double your money on a 1-year CD, given the best rates posted on Bankrate.com. We don’t know about you, but we’re not sure we’ll live that long!

We’re looking at generalities here. You should discuss your specific situation with your financial planner. But our point is that it’s hard to look into the future right now and see an obvious place to put your money.

As we were talking about this, we realized there are some good places to put your money, even now.

Your own debt

If you have any debt, you can earn a decent return by paying it down. Let’s say you have a car loan on which you’re paying 6% interest. You can earn a guaranteed 6% per year return by paying it off. That’s pretty hard to beat right now.

Of course, if you have credit card debt, your returns may be as high as 30%!

Durable goods

You can still get a good deal on durable goods. Think cars, appliances and those sorts of things.

Some dealers are still hungry, although not as much as they were six months to a year ago. So you may be able to strike a good deal by buying a little bit prematurely.

Non-perishables

Think canned goods, household supplies and such. If you see something that you regularly use priced at half its normal cost – and you know it doesn’t go on sale very often – you can get a good return by stocking up.

Energy-efficiency

This is one of the few outlays you can make that will pay you back month-after-month. For example, if you have inefficient windows, you can seal up your home better by replacing them.

Energy prices are relatively low right now compared to what we will probably see in the years ahead. So getting a good deal now may very well give you a decent return.

These are good places to invest. But we haven’t discussed the best place to invest right now.

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Yourself

Invest in yourself! It’s the best place to invest now. Does that surprise you?

You may invest in more education that you know will make you more marketable in the future. Your investment of time and money may pay handsome dividends.

You may make a lateral move to beef up your resume or invest a little extra time to learn a new skill related to your current work. 

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That’s how I learned to do audio production. When I was in the early years of my career in radio, after I got done with my on-air shift, I would go into the production room – where the commercials were being made – and soak up all the information I could get. The only investment on my part was my time, but I have to tell you, it continues paying dividends to this day!

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If it weren’t for that, The Bigg Success Show may have never happened!

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You may want to dip your toes in the entrepreneurial waters, even just part time.

• First, you may invest time – and perhaps some money – to hone up the skills required to run a business.

• Then, you may invest money in samples of the product you want to sell and test it with potential customers.

• Next, you may make a small investment in the infrastructure of the business (e.g. a web site) to see if you can attract enough customers to make it worth your while.

• By keeping your costs low while you test a concept, you’ll be able to keep testing them until you find one that makes you money.

Invest in yourself – it’s the best investment you can make right now. Let’s face it – it’s the best investment you can ever make at any time because it leads to bigg success!

What are you doing to invest in yourself? 

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00525-112409.mp3

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NetApp, a data storage and management company, knocked Google out of the top spot for the first time in three years.

You can find a great video about NetApp on the Fortune site. NetApp invests time and money to create a culture where people want to work. The video shows people playing volleyball and working out in the company gym. It sure doesn’t look like work!

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They do more than encourage play time at work

NetApp has a program that pays employees to take time off to volunteer for something they’re passionate about. They’ve found that employees sometimes come together to work on a cause. So this program has helped build teamwork among their people.

You may be thinking …

“Well, this is great but it sure wouldn’t work in my business.”

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I understand why someone might think that because it wouldn’t have worked in the businesses I was in before we started Bigg Success. Most of our people were in the field. We didn’t need a gym – the work was very physical so most of our employees got a great workout with their job. We were lucky to see most of our people for fifteen minutes a day. But the details of what NetApp does aren’t really important.

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Yeah, it’s the idea behind what they’re doing at NetApp that we think is most interesting. Bigg success is life on your own terms. The leaders of the company are certainly doing that. They set out to build a great company by creating a great place to work. The founder says that they took a leap of faith and spent time and money to create this incredible environment for their employees.

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That’s three of the five elements of bigg success right there – growth, time and money! But they hit all five because they have found ways to let their employees play at work.

Now isn’t that an interesting idea? Work doesn’t have to be … work.

Something magical happens

In the interview, NetApp’s founder talks about energizing people. They think when people feel good – when they feel motivated – something magical happens.

That’s why we’re talking about them today. They are a great example of something that’s critical to living our lives on our own terms. It’s the bigg idea behind bigg success:

You create synergy between the five elements of bigg success by understanding the relationship between them and discovering ways to get them all working in sync.

Our lives are fuller when we’re able to do that.

We work to make money so we can afford to play. But what if you can work and play all at the same time. Isn’t that so much better?

What if you loved your work so much that it seemed like play? What if that work paid you enough to buy everything you really wanted?

NetApp took a leap of faith that’s paying off for them. Sure, they’re being affected by current economic conditions. But their market share has gone up in spite of it.

It can happen to you too. In your life. In your business.

Look for ways to blend the five elements for your benefit. That leads to bigg success!

Have you found ways to blend work and play?

You can share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

Thanks so much for stopping by our site today.

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Bigg success is life on your own terms. Please join us next time as we discuss ramping up your savings one term at a time.

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00370-041009.mp3

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The example

Now we want to look at an example. Let’s say that you make $100,000 a year. You invest 2,500 hours a year – 50 hours a week for 50 weeks – to earn that money. We immediately see that you’re making $40 an hour.

We’ll simplify the 4-step process we discussed last time. Let’s say that you found that 20 percent of your activities generate 80 percent of your income. The old 80/20 rule. We’ll call these your highest-value activities.

So while you earn $40 an hour from your entire portfolio of activities, you’re actually making $160 an hour from your highest-value activities.

Also assume that further analysis showed that you aren’t making any money from 20 percent of your tasks. These are your lowest-value activities, which are really weighing down the overall return on your invested time.

A bigg jump in income

Looking at the lowest-value activities, ask yourself if you can eliminate any of them. Let’s say you determine that all those activities are a complete waste of your time. Further assume that you could spend all of that time on your highest value activities. It’s unlikely that this would be the case, but it illustrates our point simply so let’s go with it.

Under our assumptions here, your income would increase 80 percent. You would make $180,000 instead of $100,000. Instead of making $40 an hour, you’re making $72 an hour. Sounds pretty good, huh?

But it’s really just making sure you’re allocating your time – your most precious resource – most effectively.

Make 55 percent more

The problem is it’s not realistic to think that 20 percent of your time is completely wasted. In fact, we bet you waste very little. A more realistic assumption is that you would have to pay someone to do some portion of these lowest-value activities. But you can afford it now!

In fact, we found that you could pay up to $160 an hour for those activities and still break-even. But we want to do better than break-even.

So we assumed you would pay $50 an hour on average for those activities. In that case, you would make 55% more even after paying someone!

Synergy

Now think about it, you’re paying someone $50 an hour and before you were only making $40 an hour. This is consistent with things we’ve seen in our own businesses as we focus on higher-value activities.

But here’s something else we’ve found – your highest value activities may our lowest value activities. This is where synergy comes in. By partnering with people and organizations around core strengths – we work together, with you doing what you do best while we do what we do best – everyone makes more money without investing more time.

The importance of testing

But what if you just don’t have the money to hire someone to do these things for you? It’s important to test. Just try investing a little more time on your highest value activity.

You may have to give up something – even a little downtime – while you’re doing this. See if you make more money. If you do, keep feeding that task. To do that, find ways to delegate those lower-value activities for you, even if it costs a little money.

Just like a venture capitalist, if you keep funding those activities that generate the highest return and you move away from things that don’t, you’ll make that bigg money you know you’re worth!

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Thank you so much for reading our post today. Until next time, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00328-021109.mp3

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Now we want to extend that concept. We hear a lot about the right mix of assets when it comes to investing in our retirement portfolios. But we don’t often think of the activities we perform – how we invest our time – as a mix of assets.

Investing time like a venture capitalist allocates money

We should because the things we do should add value to our lives or we shouldn’t do them. So we want to approach our investment of time like it’s a portfolio … specifically, a venture capitalist’s portfolio.

A venture capitalist invests in a bunch of companies. Then they see how they perform and make decisions. If a company is hitting its marks, they keep funding it. If not, they don’t. They are constantly allocating money to the companies that look like they will generate the greatest return.

We can use this as a model for how we invest our time.

Find your highest value mix of activities

We’ve come up with a four-step process to determine those activities which deserve more of our investment of time and those tasks that should get less. So we can make more money without investing more time.

Step 1: List all the activities you perform.

Step 2: Place a dollar value on each of those activities.
It’s relatively easy to figure out the value of activities that make you money, but what do you do with those tasks that don’t? You want to look at two scenarios:

• How much would it cost to pay someone to do it for you?

• How much could you make in that time?

For example, spring is about here. It will be time to get out the lawn mower. For the sake of simplification, we’ll ignore the cost of owning and maintaining a mower. Say you could find someone to mow your yard for $50. In that time, you could earn $75 after-taxes. Under these assumptions, mowing your own yard costs you $25.

Step 3: Rank your activities from high to low.

Step 4: Create a portfolio of activities that generate the highest return.
Just like a venture capitalist, you want to invest more time in those activities at the top of your list. You want to “fund” the winners (i.e. invest more time in them).

To find the time for those activities, look at the bottom of your list and find ways to eliminate or delegate those tasks. One by one, you’ll find more time to invest in your higher value activities. 

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Limitations

Admittedly, there are limitations to this process. Some activities cannot be measured with money. Going back to our example about mowing the yard, you may really enjoy that task.

It also doesn’t account for the fact that you need some down time to recharge. This is definitely a quantitative, not a qualitative, process.

This was the set-up. Next time we’ll discuss an example so you see how powerful this process can be. You’ll see how to make 55 percent more money without investing any more time.

Thanks so much for stopping by our site today. Until next time, here’s to your bigg success!

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Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00327-021009.mp3

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(Image in today's post by bluegum)

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But if you’re a business owner, do you include the value of your time in your calculations? How about when you’re making a personal decision? It’s important to add time into the equation.

To do that, follow this process:

• Step 1: Estimate project hours. How much time will you spend if you do this project?

• Step 2: Select your alternative activity. What would you do if you weren’t working on this project?

• Step 3: Calculate your opportunity cost per hour. Your opportunity cost per hour is the amount of money you could earn (or not spend) per hour on the alternative activity you chose in Step 2.

For example, if you would watch TV instead of working on this project, then that time wouldn’t be valued at much. Maybe, instead of watching TV, you would clean your house. Now that’s worth something!

How much would you pay somebody to clean your house? How many hours would it take you to do it yourself? Divide the amount you would pay someone to do the work by the number of hours it would take you to do it yourself to get your opportunity cost per hour.

• Step 4: Determine the total cost of your invested time. Multiply the number of project hours (Step 1) by your opportunity cost per hour (Step 3). That’s the value of the time you will invest in this project. This should be added to the money you will invest to find your total investment.

Example – Getting certified (Part II)

Let’s look at the same project we considered yesterday – you decide to go back to school and get certified for some specialty. Here are the details:

Cost: $2,000
Incremental income: $2,000 in Years 1 through 3 (then you retire)
Opportunity cost of your capital: 6%

Now let’s add in the time component. Assume that, if you put the same time into another activity instead of this certification program, you would expect to earn $2,000. That’s the opportunity cost of your time. So instead of an investment of $2,000 (as mentioned above), your investment is really $4,000.

Payback period doubles

We see that your payback period is two years. You’ll be fully compensated for your invested time and money by the end of the second year. But remember, when we didn’t factor the value of your time into the equation, your payback period was only one year. So it doubles in this case.

Net Present Value falls

We said yesterday that calculating the Net Present Value (NPV) was a better way to determine whether or not you should do a project. In this case, with the value of your time factored in, the NPV is about $1,300 as shown in this screenshot from Microsoft Excel:

As you may recall – if our NPV is greater than $0, then we take on the project. That’s the case here so we would want to do this project. In fact, even factoring in our time, this project – under the assumptions we’ve made – would return 23%. That’s a pretty good return on our time and our money!

But not nearly as good as the 84% we thought it was when we weren’t placing any value on our time. That’s why it’s so important to include our time. As we said, businesses do this implicitly because they have to pay people to do projects. But when we’re taking them on ourselves, we have to be sure to place the appropriate value on our time. We forget this too often … to our own detriment. 

Now you have the ammunition you need to determine whether or not you should take on that project you’re considering! 

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We thank you so much for reading our post today. Join us next time when we share a magic elixir we just discovered … it’s success in a can! Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00322-020309.mp3

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