Welcome to “The Economics of…”—a new series from What Works. In this series, I’ll be exploring how economic concepts and frameworks can help us run our businesses or manage our careers. Each episode will have some fundamental economics education and a case study to make each concept tangible. 

Today, we’re tackling a pretty fundamental economic concept: opportunity cost. Opportunity cost helps us understand what we have to give up in order to get what we want. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it is. But opportunity cost asks us to dig deep to discover the hidden costs of any decision—and that can be anything but straightforward.

In this week’s case study, I talk with Tell Me A Story founder Hillary Rea about the opportunity cost of quitting social media (or rather, the opportunity cost of not doing all the things she has the time to do now!).

Footnotes:

• Learn more about Hillary Rea and Tell Me A Story
• Economics in Two Lessons by John Quiggin
• “Unlimited Wants, Limited Resources” by Robert Skidelsky and the Institute for New Economic Thinking
• “Networking That Pays” by Michelle Warner
• Music by Track Club

An essay version of each podcast episode drops every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. If you'd like to have it delivered straight to your inbox each week, sign up for What Works Weekly—FREE: explorewhatworks.com/weekly

“Thanks to What Works, I’ve broken up with goal setting as usual. Tara has laid out a liberated way to identify what matters to me and move towards it without striving, suffering, or burning out.” — Annie Schuessler, Rebel Therapist