TRANSCRIPT

Opportunity Cost is a term used in economics and is defined as follows:

'The opportunity cost of a particular activity is the value or benefit given up by engaging in that activity, relative to engaging in an alternative activity.'

In other words every activity you do with your time has an 'opportunity cost' of all the other things you could be doing with that time.

One of the big reasons why so many people spend so much time doing Low Impact Tasks is because they fail to realise the 'opportunity cost' of doing those tasks.

In other words, they only see the (often very small) benefits of doing that Low Impact Task and NOT the very high cost of not doing something much more valuable with that time - all those High Impact Tasks!

Opportunity Cost - a sobering example

I want to give you a small - and possibly quite sobering - illustration of just how 'high' that opportunity cost can be...

Let's imagine you spend 1 hour on social media per day...

1 hour per day x 365 days per year = 365 hours per year

365 / 8 = 45 full, eight hour work days per year

45 days is a month and a half

If you spend 1 hour per day on social media, you are spending a month and a half - per year - on social media.

That fact is sobering all on it's own. Remember social media is a Low Impact Activity.

But it gets worse...

Because most people don't spend just 1 hour on social media - they spend much more that that!

Let's imagine you spend 2 hours per day on social media...

That's 90 full, eight hour working days per year.

That's THREE WHOLE MONTHS per year that you spend on social media.

If you keep blaming TIME for the reason why you are not more successful - there's your time right there!

But now let's look at the OPPORTUNITY COST...

What could you do in three months?

In three months, you could:

• Create a course (6 weeks)
• Launch that course (2 weeks)
• Create an evergreen sales funnel for that course (2 weeks)
• And... have a two week holiday - paid for by your incredibly successful course launch (2 weeks)

Just let that sink in for a moment...

Remember, whenever you choose to do one activity, you are losing the benefits of all the other, more impactful things you could be doing with that time.

Every Low Impact Task that you do has a big opportunity cost attached to it.

Now, right off the bat I can think of a couple of objections to this...

Yeah, but what if a post goes viral?

This is a huge reason why so many bloggers feel like they have to put quite considerable effort into social media. I would argue this is like playing a really rubbish lottery.

You pay loads in each week (all that opportunity cost) and you get out the 'vague chance that something someday *might* go viral'.

And even if it did... what then? I have had a number of posts 'go viral' over the years (not generally my doing, but because someone else with much a bigger following shared one of my posts). The result? You get a nice little flurry of traffic for a day... two if you are lucky, and then straight back to normal.

Like I said... a really, really long-shot gamble... without a great payoff.

Put that against what else you *could* be doing with that time and the gamble seems an even worse idea!

Yeah, but I make money from sponsored social media posts!

How much? Because I'm willing to bet, if it were squillions, you probably wouldn't be doing this course.

Remember it's all about 'opportunity cost'

Yes, you might make SOME money from sponsored posts - but could you make MORE money if you used that time in a different way?

And there are no guarantees with sponsored posts. Remember when Covid hit and all the sponsored work dried up?

Or maybe you have a great following on one social media platform, but then another one pops up in the future and all the sponsored opportunities go there... where you DON'T have a following...

ASSIGNMENT

Take a moment to think of all the Admin Tasks you currently do. In the light of this unit on Opportunity Cost, do any of them suddenly seem a whole lot LESS attractive? Can you further minimize or completely STOP doing any of them?