More Fun With Math and Online Coaching

To explore the concept of online coaching and time-dollars a bit further, let’s use my previous example (5 hours per week spent planning, time is worth $20/hour):

By hiring an online coach, this is an extra 260 hours per year of time not spent researching and writing your own training/nutrition. Let us suppose that a coach charges $500 for 13 weeks of programming. At the aforementioned $20/hour, it’s going to take you 25 hours of additional work (or $ saving/sacrifice) to afford this plan. In return, you will accrue a net gain of 40 additional hours of your life. 13 weeks is one quarter of a year, and we already established that you are gaining 260 hours per full year. 260*25%=65 hours, 65 minus the 25 extra "hours" you need to work = 40. At $20 per hour, that's an additional $800 time-dollars you've netted.  

To extrapolate: at $2,000 for an entire year of programming you would work an additional 100 hours @ $20/hour (or one extra hour per day for 20 weeks, a half hour per day for 40 weeks, etc). For the commitment of 100 extra hours per year, you receive a full year of programming and a net gain of 160 HOURS OF YOUR LIFE that you aren’t reading, plotting and planning. 160 * $20 = $3,200, or a 61% return. 

At some point, this is no longer a cost effective endeavor. I would argue this, because there are excellent online coaches who are very flexible and work with you on payment plans or reduced rates. But we do need to draw a line somewhere. One way to sort this out, using totally new values:

Let’s say you spend one hour per week (52 hours per year) with programming and your time is worth $20/hr. Your hypothetical annual “budget” is $1,040 or 52 hours. Any total programming that doesn’t break this price point or the number of hours expended is accretive to your life through time-dollar savings. A $1,200 annual plan is a net loss of (15%) in time-dollar terms since you will need to work 15% more hours (60-52/52) and thus “spend” more money (1,200-1040/1040) than you would be saving.

There are some caveats to consider with this math. The less time you already devote to planning nutrition and training, the less you will derive from this activity since you are investing very few time-dollars in the first place. Also: this is purely an exercise regarding planning. I've given no considerations to the actual training/exercise time, nor have I discussed results. I'll save those for later, but I think that is also a compelling argument. I believe the math behind training time may illustrate why Crossfit has such an intriguing value proposition, despite the high "cost" for box membership.

I did all this in a fairly short amount of time, so feel free to check my math and ask me if something seems off; I ALWAYS forget to carry the "1". The point I'm trying to make is this: your time is EXPENSIVE. By putting your time into dollar terms, i'm trying to illustrate the fact that you're spending money every second of every day. A little basic math can help you make choices that offer higher potential returns with lower risk to the downside.