January 26, 2020

Why would a slower computer be better?

Let’s say that your client work entails long hours sitting at your computer compiling code or rendering video or processing images or encoding audio or some other time-intensive computing task.

Now let’s say that a new computer was released that was twice as fast - and twice as expensive - as your current model.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the new computer would cut your time babysitting long running processes from 20 hours per week to 10.

Would you buy it?

If you bill for your time, it’s hard to make a case for spending a lot of money on a computer that will allow you to work significantly faster.

If you DON’T bill for your time, it’s a no brainier.

Here’s the thing...

When you’re billing for your time there is no financial incentive to create systems or design processes or invest in tools that will allow you to finish your work more quickly.

Without that incentive, the leverage-creation part of your brain atrophies. You stop thinking about clever ways to deliver the same results in fewer hours.

This leads to one of the most surprising side effects of ditching hourly:

Once you stop billing for your time, you start discovering lots of ways to work faster without compromising quality or making less money.

Not only is this good for you because it increases your profits, but it’s good for your clients because they get desirable business results delivered more quickly.

It’s a win-win :-)

Yours,

—J

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