Indeed. I think an MBA might make analogy to the time value of money concept; the time value of time would state that I'd prefer to have a free hour not working

Indeed. I think an MBA might make analogy to the time value of money concept; the time value of time would state that I'd prefer to have a free hour not working on this project now, than to have the same free hour at a later date. In the same way a company isn't going to pay out a million dollar financial obligation early, you wouldn't expect a person to perform a 10 hour work obligation early. And it's relatively easy to think of rational reasons to attach a discount factor to free time later. Certainly on a long enough time horizon future free time is very likely to have no marginal value at all :)