Are you giving  your time too cheaply?  Of all the commodities available to you – the least replaceable, to you at least, is time.  The last hour gone by, no amount of money or any other form of exchange, can EVER replace or reimburse.

And sadly, the time that you give freely, so often, becomes accepted as ‘without value’ and treated as inferior to the time of those which must be paid for.

I am finding this, and the discovery is most unpleasant, but at the same time, enlightening.

And this is fine, so long as your time that you are spending, that IS ONLY YOURS TO SPEND in a way that truly means something to you.  But you need to be sure that it does mean something to you.

It is easy to get caught up in ‘commitments’ and then find yourself spending time to fulfil the expectations of others.  Once you become aware of this it can become a treadmill, and you seriously need to question the way you are using these precious hours allotted only to you.

A friend of mine found himself in this situation recently, and I encouraged him to write the following letter for himself to the organisation he was volunteering with:

“Dear Organisation

I joined you with the best of intentions.  I really did.  And, by the way, I am not a ‘joiner’, so  for me, this was an effort.

But after all that I have lived through in my life, including a long time not wanting to be here, I decided in the end, that if I was to go on, I wanted to at the very least, to live a ‘useful life’.

There is so much to make better in the world, and it was overwhelming, because there is no shortage of ‘good causes.’

But I decided that the best place to start, as just one person, was to become as useful as I could be in my own community, and to contribute in the best way that I could, with the skills that I had.

And, I did that.

In 2 years I gave many hundreds of hours, archiving, revivifying, revitalising and reinventing and re-launching  the website, and a whole side menu of other digital tasks.  I did this  as a come lately 60 something volunteer pensioner,  who talked less and delivered much, in the wake of  a 20 something who talked much and delivered, well, not much, and left leaving some unresolved loose ends to continue in a 5 figure salaried job (well why not!)

And now, I find that after all my work, I am soon to be moved on, with probably a letter of thanks, from the Chair, and no more.  I am to be supplanted by a 30 something, CV’d, hour-counting, part-timer, with a patronising ‘thanks for everything.’

But, in the end, I am glad that 2 years has not become 4 or 10, or whatever.  Because I will now draw a line under it realising how precious my TIME is, and I will move my talent to a better place!

Kind Regards

Your Former Volunteer”

Now, sending this letter was up to him, but the point was, to work out whether it was important enough for him to keep giving his precious time to this particular effort.  And this is important for all of us who offer ourselves as volunteers.

FREE time, is NOT without value, and we need to constantly remind ourselves of this!!