I’m thinking that I should start writing here, literally every day, for at least ten minutes.
My initial thought was, “how valuable is thinking about my own business towards its future success?” And I think the answer is, perhaps clearly, ‘extremely valuable’.
And yet, how often do I actually do it? I have lots of little thoughts here or there, but it’s almost never organized, and often no action comes from it anyway.
I think it would benefit me hugely to just organize my thoughts on a regular basis here. I’d like to outline just some of the ways that I think it will help.
1. Focus
It will help me focus on what’s important, and also to keep any pressing tasks or goals top-of-mind. By thinking about these things every single day, and in an organized manner, they will be more likely to actually stick and have an impact on my actions.
2. Time Analysis
I’ll be able to analyze what I’ve been spending time on and what has actually contributed to my success. If none of the things I did contribute much to my actual goals, I’ll have to ask myself why I’m doing them.
3. Organization and Clarity of Thoughts
By writing things out, I am clarifying my thinking and organization my plans and analysis. Once it’s on paper it will help me think about it more. Since there are a million things I could be doing at any given point, it’s nice to narrow that down.
4. Improved Writing and Communication
Simply by writing every day, I’ll get better at it. Better writing is useful virtually everywhere, so this can only help. It is likely to even improve in-person communication I think.
5. Last-Minute Blog Posts
It’s likely that there will be value in some of these musings to others beyond myself. In a pinch, I can always revise one and make it a blog post!
6. Goal and Progress Tracking
I’ll be able to go back and read previous entries and see where I was at. This could help me see where I’m stuck, and also to track how I’ve come along on priorities and goals.
7. Posterity
This could be a great collection of writings at some point. Maybe I’ll want to look back at it for myself, maybe I’ll want to make some kind of compilation. Who knows!
8. Conscious Effort Towards Business Thinking
This is a concrete step I can take to spending more time thinking about my business and how I can improve. It could start a chain reaction of improved business planning.
Thought of the Day – Not Spending Time on Most Important Activities
We’ve all heard the Pareto Principal, also known as the 80/20 rule. But what if you’ve identified your 20 but don’t actually focus on them anyway?
Right now, I have work extending out for months on my waiting list. I need to find additional help to handle that. It’s like we’re ready to grow, I just need more help.
In one of my recent posts, I talk about how I need to change what activities I’m involved with in the business, and pursuing that will certainly give me more time to find that help. So I would say that concentrating on delegating and removing responsibilities from myself is certainly part of the 20, and an overall process to simplify my business and establish processes is critical for scaling as well.
But not everything I’m doing right now has anything to do with that. For instance, I’m spending a fair amount of time preparing for an event I’m hosting along with Kari Switala and others.
From a business perspective, what is the purpose of this event? Almost exclusively marketing. Getting new clients.
And is that a priority right now? No. Not at all. In fact we have too many!
I obviously can’t back out now since I made the commitment. Plus it’s coming up soon, so I would never do that anyway. But I think it’s important to recognize that it isn’t furthering my goals a whole lot.
The real issue is that it’s a short term marketing effort, which is specifically what I don’t need right now. Long term efforts such as BNI and blogging/SEO for my own website are still important, because I need to keep growing well into the future.
But the short term ones, I should be saying no to until I actually need them. There are way better ways to spend my time.
How Should I Spend My Time?
I thought I would sketch out a rough outline of how I think I actually should be spending my time, because I should be putting conscious effort in to that. Note that I attempted to include emails relating to these things in their respective categories
Long Term Time Spend Goal (6 Months)
20% Working on business, developing processes
20% Working with employees, hiring initiatives, training
15% Sales, Proposals, etc
15% BNI
10% Project Management
5% Admin Work (Billing, Invoices, Deposits, Accounting, Etc)
5% Writing Blog Posts / SEO for myself
9% Other
<1% Actually doing work on client sites
Short Term Time Spend Goal (6 Months)
15% Working on business, developing processes
10% Working with employees, hiring initiatives, training
10% Sales, Proposals, etc
15% BNI
15% Project Management
5% Admin Work (Billing, Invoices, Deposits, Accounting, Etc)
5% Writing Blog Posts / SEO for myself
10% Other
15% Actually doing work on client sites
Where I Think I Am Now
1% Working on business, developing processes
1% Working with employees, hiring initiatives, training
15% Sales, Proposals, etc
18% BNI
18% Project Management
10% Admin Work (Billing, Invoices, Deposits, Accounting, Etc)
2% Writing Blog Posts / SEO for myself
15% Other (Things like this upcoming event)
20% Actually doing work on client sites
There’s a lot to think about when looking at those numbers! The two most important long-term tasks (most likely), are ones I spend a combined 2% of my time on now. That’s terrible! I definitely need to work on that.
I think it might also be time to read “The One Thing” again, as it really goes over all of this, and is fantastic.