Freeing Up Time
Business Foundation Skills, Create More Time, Get Out Of Your Own Way
Every entrepreneur I work with asks me how they can create more time. Many carry the false belief that once you make more money — you’ll have more time. Or once you reach a certain point in your business — you’ll have more time. “Someday I’ll have more time, when I just reach six figures.” Or, “As soon as I get this book done, then I’ll have more time.” It’s so easy to think this way if you don’t understand exactly how time management works in business.
Here’s what you need to know:
The more your business grows, the more resources you will have. The more resources you have, the more opportunities you can take part in. So as your business grows, your to-do list grows right along with it. What this looks like visually is that most entrepreneurs are precariously carrying full plates of rocks, stones and sand (big projects, medium projects and small tasks). And they are teetering over, trying to keep things from falling off those plates. Some are even getting so tired that they can’t even hold the plate up anymore. In reality, most busy entrepreneurs have stones and sand falling everywhere!
Perhaps you can relate. If you’re already imagining your long to-do list, and are wanting to get back to it right now — yes, I’m talking to you.
So how does the busy business owner cope? How can you create more time by freeing up more of your time?
Well, the first step is to start taking stones, pebbles and scoops of sand off your plate. The big projects, the medium projects and the little ones. For many of my clients this looks like hiring a cleaning lady, having someone come a couple of hours a week to support you in person with paperwork, and handing over your laundry to someone else. Then there’s the bigger projects that require a virtual assistant or a project manager to support you.
If you’re like some of the women entrepreneurs I’ve met, you might think that you can’t afford more support.
Let’s look at the numbers: let’s say you hire a personal assistant for 4 hours a week for $15 an hour. That’s $240 to free up 16 hours in a month. If you put 4 sales conversations in during that 16 hours and you charge $500 a client, with a conversion rate of 1 out of 4, you would generate $500. That’s a $260 dollar return on your investment. And that doesn’t include any of the other work you would get done. Hiring someone else will automatically create more time for you to get other money making activities done.
If good time management is what you want — then delegation is a skill that you must master.
Let’s get started.
Write down 10 items that are on your plate right now…
Delegate as many of them as possible but a minimum of three. Write down what task you will delegate and the name of the person or type of person you will delegate it to. If you don’t have someone who you can delegate to right now, what steps do you need to take to find someone to take over your three tasks (perhaps generating more income or getting new clients)? Also consider websites where you can hire freelancers for individual projects.
Photo: flickr, angeladellatorre
