Buy Back Your Time

About the Author

Dan Martell is a seasoned entrepreneur and founder of SaaS Academy, a coaching program for B2B SaaS founders. He started, grew, and sold three tech businesses within a decade. Martell also became Canada’s number one angel investor in 2012, investing in over 50 start-up companies. His own successful work-life balance lends credence to his time management approach: He’s a dedicated Ironman athlete, philanthropist, and father of two.

Main Idea

Running a successful business requires a lot of time and effort, but it doesn’t have to take over your life. In Buy Back Your Time, Dan Martell argues that you can run a profitable business and make time for the things you love without having to work yourself to the bone. You must simply buy back your time: Hire others to take over some of your work, and then invest your reclaimed time in activities that replenish your energy and advance your business. Martell shares practical strategies for managing your time better, including how to identify the value of a task, improve the efficiency of your company, and create optimized schedules that help you achieve your personal and professional goals.

Table of Contents

• Part 1: Free Up Your Schedule
• Part 2: Reclaim Time at Work
• Part 3: Optimize Your Time With Schedules

Part 1: Free Up Your Schedule

According to Martell, you probably spend a lot of time doing unproductive tasks. Because of this, he first advises you to cleanse your daily schedule by removing tasks that are low-value, energy-draining, or both. You can do so in three steps: 1) Analyze how you spend your time, 2) delegate lower-value tasks, and 3) hire people to handle higher-value tasks.

Step 1: Analyze How You Spend Your Time

Martell writes that the first step to reclaiming your time is to understand how you currently spend it. This helps you identify which activities are draining your time and why, so you’ll know what changes you need to make. To get a clear picture of your time use, he recommends the following process:

• Record everything you do over a two-week period. Every 15 minutes, stop and write down the task you’re doing to get an accurate understanding of where your time goes.
• Determine how much each task is worth. Martell recommends you figure out how valuable tasks are by labeling them with one to four dollar signs. You can decide what each dollar value stands for—for example, one dollar sign might signify tasks worth $20 an hour, while four dollar signs might signify tasks worth $100 or more an hour. By scoring each task based on its value, you’ll learn which ones to prioritize.
• Reflect on how each task affects your energy. Identify whether a task replenishes or drains your energy by highlighting each task in a different color. For example, handling technical difficulties at your work might drain your energy, while participating in a professional seminar might replenish it.
• Organize activities into one of four groups based on how valuable and energizing they are:
  • Group A: Energizing tasks that have high financial value—for example, brainstorming new business ideas or meeting with potential investors or clients.
  • Group B: Energizing tasks that have low financial value—for example, practicing personal hobbies or attending social events.
  • Group C: Draining tasks that have low financial value—for example, running small errands or dealing with unnecessary paperwork.
  • Group D: Draining tasks that have high financial value—for example, paying business taxes or handling difficult employees.

Step 2: Eliminate Low-Value and Energy-Draining (Group C) Tasks

Martell writes that once you understand all of the tasks that occupy your time, you should start eliminating low-value and energy-draining (Group C) tasks. These are tasks you’ve assigned the fewest dollar signs and marked as energy-draining, and they’re usually the easiest to eliminate. Martell suggests four options for freeing yourself from these tasks: