**How to Get It All Done in the Time You Have**
by Kimberly Stevens, Ask The Biz Coach
Let's face it - no matter where you live, what language you
speak or what type of business you're in, you've only got 24
hours a day. No matter how you slice it, you end up with the
same 24 hours as me.
So, how do high-achieving business owners do it? What makes
their 24 hours worth so much more than the same 24 hours given
to everybody else?
The key is not in how much time you have, but how you CHOOSE to
spend that time. Notice I capitalized the word *choose*.
That's the key. It's not that these high-achievers don't have
all the busywork that you have, they just avoid spending the
majority of their time wrapped up in it. Instead, they *invest*
their time in things that will generate fast results, big
results, or both.
I chose the word *invest* carefully. At certain stages of
business, your time is more valuable than anything else you have
- it's your number one asset. If you're early in your business,
you might not have a lot of money or at lot of assets (clients,
brand recognition, etc.), but you've got time. In later stages
of business, you might have more money and more assets, but time
is still a critical factor in determining the level of success
you are able to achieve.
So how do you figure out where to put your time. Well, first
off - you should set aside *thinking time* every week. It's
very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day activities of your
business and become just another employee. Even if you're a
sole proprietor (the only person in your business), you need to
set aside time to be the CEO/President versus an employee.
Michael Gerber wrote a great book on this, called "The E-Myth
Revisited." It's a small, easy-to-read primer about creating
systems in your business. He talks about thinking about your
business as a franchise even if you never plan to grow beyond
one location with one employee (you).
He refers to this *thinking time* as working ON your business
and the rest of the time as working IN your business. My
accountant gave me this book & told me that when he heard Gerber
speak, he gave out baseball caps that said "ON" on the front and
"IN" on the back. This was a visual to remind the audience
members to be aware of what role they were playing at all times
(either as an employee or as the CEO).
So, set aside some weekly *thinking time* to be the CEO of your
business. Start this week. I use Fridays.
During this time, think about how you can:
1. SIMPLIFY the processes in your business ~ most businesses
have certain activities that are done over and over and could be
systematized so they require less and less time every time you
do them. For example: writing proposals and contracts
2. WORK SMARTER ~ before you do something, give it just one
minute of thought ~ is the way you're planning to do it the best
way to do it? Quite often, we just want to get moving ~ get
busy. However, this may lead us to do something in a very
inefficient manner. Instead, spend just 3 minutes thinking
about the options you have for completing the task. You may
come up with a much more efficient way of getting it done. For
example: I spent 4 hours formatting the names and email
addresses of my subscribers for the survey I invited you to
complete. The survey program required that I import them in a
format that wasn't compatible with my current file. So, after
spending these 4 hours doing this, I realized that I could have
accomplished exactly what I needed to do in Excel in about 5-10
minutes. Ugh! Four hours down the tubes!
3. ELIMINATE some things. Yes, in the perfect world, I would
get to do everything I want to do. Everything down to the last
paper clip would have a place in my office and all of my
computer files would be organized perfectly. But, you know
what? I want to get a lot of books and manuals written. I want
to expand my marketing plan to create a national brand for Ask
The Biz Coach. I want to get my book published by next spring.
Those paper clips are going to have to wait. What are your
paper clips? What are they keeping you from accomplishing?
4. SIMPLIFY the processes in your life ~ as business owners, our
work and personal lives quite frequently compete for the same
time so any change you make to simplify your personal life will
very likely give you back some time that you can reinvest in
your personal life or your business. For example: my 2-year
old son just started attending a nursery school that is a
4-minute drive from our house. Had I chosen a school that was
15 minutes away, I would be spending 22 more minutes every time
on the trip there and back. That doesn't sound like a lot of
time, but multiply that by the number of days he attends and add
in all of the other incremental time savings I could make on
bill paying (set up online banking bill paying), cooking dinners
(find crockpot recipes - www.crockpot.com
- or cook double
recipes), etc. This could be several hours a week in total.
5. DELEGATE! Oh, there are so many business owners that don't
delegate. Yes, I know, when you're first starting out, you
don't feel like you have the money to hire anyone to do
anything, so you take it all on yourself. But, there comes a
time when your lack of delegation is the very thing that is
keeping you from proceeding to the next level. You don't have
to hire an employee ~ maybe you hire a high school kid to stuff
envelopes, a college intern to do research, or a stay-at-home
mom to make cold calls part-time. Or, maybe the delegation
happens on the home front ~ hire a lawn service, a housecleaner,
a bookkeeper or a handyman. Just take some stuff off of your
plate.
Managing your time is just that ~ MANAGING it. You can't
CONTROL time. You can't STOP time. And you certainly can't BUY
time. But, if you want to get more out of your life and your
business, you must learn to manage it.
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Kimberly Stevens is the author of the *Ask The Biz Coach ... How
To Make $100,000+/Year: The Professional's Guide to Selling What
You Know* series. Sign-up for a 5-part free Email Mini-Course,
"How To Make $100,000+/Year by Selling What You Know" at
www.askthebizcoach.com