Your Time Isn't Free: The Real Cost of Doing Everything Yourself

How many hours did you spend this week doing things that someone else could have done?

Managing your inbox. Moving things around in your diary. Creating social posts. Following up appointments. Doing life admin. Cleaning the house. Keeping the 47 million things in your head from falling out.

Now for the slightly uncomfortable question:

What did those hours actually cost you?

Because your time isn't free just because you're not paying yourself by the hour.

If you spend five hours doing something another person could do in two, the cost isn't simply five hours.

It's the client work you couldn't do. The sales conversation you didn't have. The thinking time you didn't protect. The opportunity you didn't pursue. Or the two hours you could have spent at the gym, with your kids, with your friends — or doing absolutely bloody nothing.

And for women, this conversation matters even more.

We already carry a disproportionate amount of the mental and domestic load. Yet we're fed productivity advice designed around pretending we have unlimited capacity.

We don't.

So perhaps the answer isn't becoming more productive.

Perhaps it's getting much more deliberate about what deserves your time in the first place.

On Thursday 27 August, Consulting CFO Shaye Thyer is joined by Lisa Hawkins for a practical conversation about buying back your time — in your business and your life.

We'll look at the three things that can fundamentally change your capacity: Systems. Processes. Support.

Not so you can cram more work into every available minute. So you can spend more of your finite time on the things that actually matter.

THE DETAILS

Thursday 27 August 2026

1:15pm AEST

Live online via Zoom

Be sure to keep an eye out for our email from hello@wearepallas.io for the calendar invitation and Zoom link.

Can't attend live? Register anyway — the recording will be sent to everyone who signs up.

YOUR PANEL

Shaye Thyer

Fellow Chartered Accountant, Consulting CFO and financial feminist. Shaye helps women use their businesses to achieve financial independence — including understanding the real financial value of their time, protecting their capacity and designing businesses that work around their lives, rather than consuming them.

Lisa Hawkins

Lisa Hawkins helps busy people reclaim their time through practical systems, structure and support. Her work focuses on taking the life and business admin that quietly consumes people's weeks and turning it into something far more manageable — from inboxes and diaries to to-do lists, routines and the systems that keep everything moving.

Lisa's philosophy is refreshingly practical: you don't need to personally do everything, and you don't need another complicated productivity system. You need clarity about what matters, good systems for everything else, and the right support where it makes sense.

YOU'LL WALK AWAY WITH

• A clearer understanding of the real financial value of your time — and what doing everything yourself may actually be costing you

• A practical way to identify what genuinely requires you and what could be delegated, outsourced or systemised

• A better understanding of opportunity cost and why the cheapest option isn't always doing it yourself

• Simple systems for managing your inbox, diary and to-do list without letting them run your life

• A framework for thinking about your capacity across your whole life, not just the hours you spend at work

• Permission to stop treating outsourcing as an indulgence and start assessing it as an investment

• Practical ideas for creating support and accountability when traditional productivity methods simply don't work for you

IF YOU'VE EVER THOUGHT...

“It's quicker if I just do it myself.”

“I can't justify paying someone to do that.”

“I just need to get more organised.”

“There aren't enough hours in the day.”

“Once things calm down, I'll sort out some systems.”

This conversation is for you.

Because you only have one human, one bucket of energy and one lot of time.

The goal isn't to become spectacularly efficient at doing everything. It's to decide what deserves you — and build systems, processes and support around the rest.

Reserve your seat and bring your questions.

Can't attend live? Register anyway — we'll send the recording to everyone who signs up.