ROLI Calculator

Because time is our most important asset a true Lifestyle Investor knows the value of this precious resource. To help you quantify, indeed calculate, the return your getting on your time invested we often talk about the Return on Lifestyle Investment or ROLI calculator. If you want to learn more about the importance of time and the ROLI concept we suggest you read the post titled What is Your Return on Lifestyle Investment? and have a listen to the Podcast: Return on Lifestyle Investment (ROLI).

The calculation is fairly strait forward. We all start out with 168 hours in a week. When we subtract the 56 hours per week we should be sleeping we are left with 112 waking hours. Now comes the fun part, think about how many hours you spend each week working, getting ready for work, commuting to work, answering work phone calls at home, even thinking about work. All of these hours each week go into the Yellow Box. When you subtract the ‘working hours’ from the ‘waking hours’ you are left with your hours of ‘free time’. Now, we all know that ‘free time’ is probably not an accurate term because even though we may not be sleeping or working there are still the rest of life’s commitments to attend to. So, what we really want to focus on is our ‘Incremental Profit’ in terms of time. These are the hours that are produced by REDUCING ‘work time’.

Below is a a simple calculation for someone with 50 hours per week of work related time. As you can see this lifestyle does not produce a very high profit in terms of time.