How To Improve Your Hourly Value Each Week

Every day, I track the tasks I’m working on using a tool called Toggl.

I work across two companies, and I separate my time for each into five broad categories or projects:

• Operations
• Meetings
• Marketing
• Sales
• Accounting

Depending on the company, it might also have a couple of unique categories (like Tacit - Product Development).

And I split up my other commitments into 3 categories, as well:

• Learning
• Governance
• Daily Reviews

By tracking my time, I can appreciate which tasks I’m really working on and what this equates to on an hourly basis.

Once I’ve completed my week, I’ll export the work I've done to a CSV file.

I’ll then go to ChatGPT or Claude and ask it the following prompt:

“Please act as an executive coach who specialises in helping founders grow from 7 > 8 figures.

Can you please review the time spent in this report, estimate an hourly rate for each task, and estimate what it would cost to hire someone else to do them?

Please identify tasks that look like important tasks but could be partially or fully automated or outsourced for someone who is aiming to achieve a $1000 an hour impact on their business.”

It often tells me what I already know, but the occasional gem pops up and tells me where I’m wasting time, and I’ll then figure out how to delegate.

Our whole job in life is to figure out where our time is best spent, this system helps do just that.

How I Hire

Here are three changes I’ve made to hire better:

Test for willingness.

I’ve found (and this is obvious in hindsight) that people who are willing to work to get your job are generally better hires. And it doesn’t take much to weed out the shitters.

Require a cover letter. Force everyone to apply the same way (“go to this seek post to apply”). Ask them to include a specific word in their cover letter.

Test specific skills.

I break jobs down into 2-4 core skills and test them individually.

Take our account management role at Gravy, for example:

• I ask people to write to test their communication and writing ability.

• I call them for a 10-minute conversation to test for personality.

• I ask them how to manage a work situation to see if they know how to manage work/are productive.

I used to run interviews instead of testing core competencies. “Hey are you good at x? Yes, I’m great” Complete waste of time. Most people lie.

Test For Feeling.

I don’t know exactly what intuition is. I just know it works. I’ve made hires against my gut many times. I have no idea why I do this, and I probably will again. But bar one exception its’s not worked out.

This goes for 90-day trials, too. I always include a 90-day trial period.

A few times I’ve hired people who’ve felt right initially, but within a week or two I realised I’d made a mistake. It sucks, but once you know, you have to act. Again, it never works out.