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When you first opened your business, I BET one of things you were most excited about was NOT having to work by the hour. With your own business, you’d be able to take home as much money as you wanted!!! But perhaps that didn’t go exactly as planned…
Regardless of how disciplined you are, we all get dragged (and sometimes, may walk willingly) into spending our time on low value activities. Scrambling to fix breaks, covering shifts for people that no showed, and running around like a wild person to ensure everyone is doing their job the way WE want it done. But if you let these things consume all your time, energy and creativity, you will decrease your overall value to your businesses.
You are the most important, highest paid, person in your business...
with the power to grow sales and boost profits. As we look to a new year, we share with you our TOP 5 tips to improve time management and focus YOUR time on growing your business.
Know The Dollar Value Of Your Time (the EXACT Dollar Value)
How much money do you want to take home this year? And how much time do you want to dedicate to your business this year? With these answers, calculate the amount of VALUE you must provide (by the hour) to reach those goals. It’s simple math, but a critical exercise to make better decisions about how you spend your time. No, you aren’t working for an hourly rate, but keeping that number top of mind when you are deciding which tasks you are going to complete in a day, will help you focus on high value activities.
Give Yourself Permission
If you keep all the important information in your head, you create a cycle of dependency on YOU. If you aren’t ready to eliminate this dependency from your business, your first step is to figure out why you’re resisting. In the past, I’ve felt that being involved created my ‘value’. I’m here to solve the problems. I’m here to serve my staff and my customers. I couldn’t see how detrimental this mentality was for my business and my personal life. Giving yourself permission to be removed from these scenarios is critical. Because if you aren’t ready to remove yourself, you will always find yourself BACK where you started.
Create Documented Systems & Delegate
Once you’ve given yourself permission to be removed from these scenarios, you must create systems and documentation that allows OTHERS to solve them to your satisfaction. If you don’t have any documentation, start slowly. And if you do, optimize it. EVERY TIME you are pulled into a low value activity, document the reason why, analyze it, and improve the existing system and documentation to fill the new gap. (And when the voice in your head tells you it’s easier and quicker to just do it yourself, resist.)
Value Your Time & Limit Your Availability
Acknowledge that when people use your time, they’re taking your money. And if you give it away easily, its value will decrease. Instead of an open door, create a steel curtain. Buy a lock. Put up a sign. Set office hours and DO NOT allow interruptions. If you can, create a workspace away from the business. And depending on where you’re at in your business, be reasonable. You might start with just one-hour blocks of uninterrupted time. And as you create more systemization in your business, increase this by another hour each time.
Incorporate These 5 Tips In Everything You Do
If you implement these tips in your business and your life and regularly revisit this, I guarantee you will begin to see a major change in your business and your personal life. The only one who can do it, is you.