Aspirational hourly rate
Setting a personal hourly price far above what you earn, then honoring it
Pick a number for an hour of your time that feels absurd, then run small decisions through it. Driving across town to save twenty dollars fails. So does an evening spent returning a broken purchase. Anything that can be paid for or dropped below the rate gets paid for or dropped, cooking and errands included. People who use it say the value is permission rather than arithmetic: it makes refusing low-value work feel legitimate instead of lazy. Two things limit it. The freed hours have to go somewhere that justifies the number, and the rate only means anything if you hold to it when the sums are small enough to argue about.
Who backs it
Sorted by strength of stance
- Naval RavikantDoes it
Angel investor · AngelList and the Naval podcast
His number was 5,000 dollars an hour, chosen before he had real money, and he used it to decide what not to do. Arguing with the electrician failed the test; so did returning a broken speaker. He admits he did those things anyway, and that he still argues about it with his wife and his mother.
Source: nav.al: Set an Aspirational Hourly Rate
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