You can recoup financial losses, but once time is gone, it's gone forever. Some view time as an unlimited supply, but it's precious and fleeting. You'll never get the hours back you spend working, so any time spent on your business is time away from your family or personal life. What is that time away from loved ones worth to you?
When you start your business, time feels like the only resource freely available. You might not have minded adding additional hours to a wedding package to book it because more time didn't directly raise your cost. But as you continue your business, you'll see how much that viewpoint truly costs you.
Have you ever thought about how much time you spend on a single job? Calculate emails to phone consultations to preparing contracts to commute time to actual shooting time to culling and editing. It's a lot of hours! Say your standard collection price average is $500 an hour for a wedding day. For an eight-hour wedding, that's a total of $4,000. Now, divide it by the total hours spent on one wedding. It ends up being much less than $500, right?
Destination weddings sound glamourous, but also factor in the time on the plane, waiting at the airport, and packing. You can basically lose two whole days between traveling to your destination and back. So would discounting your services to book a destination wedding be worth it to you in the end?
Another viewpoint on time is to allow yourself to spend money if it saves you time or frees your time, so you have an opportunity to focus on something else. Outsourcing tasks in business or something like housecleaning takes items off your to-do list. Is it beneficial to spend the money to gain more time? By spending money to accomplish an aspect you don't enjoy, you'll enable yourself to maximize your time and even broaden your workload capacity.
Start guarding your time and understanding its value. Ask yourself, "What amount of money is this job that takes X hours worth to me in exchange for my time?" Some jobs sound spectacular, and FOMO can set in when you think about the opportunity passing you by, but if you're not being paid accordingly for your time and talent, you may regret having accepted the job in the end.
There are only twenty-four hours in a day, and the calendar only moves forward. If you can spend more time on jobs as an investment for your future business, and it's worth it to you, that's great. If you'll only work for your set price because you feel time away at weddings is a sacrifice because it takes you away from your family, that's great too. Value your time and do what is best for you and your business. Just understand what it means for you and your personal life.
