Did you start your business with the high hopes that you’d spend every waking moment pouring through piles of receipts trying to update your bookkeeping reports, chasing down past due payments from customers or struggling to keep up with the growing list of marketing tasks to hopefully attract enough sales to stay in business this month?
Actually you probably started your business for one of two reasons:
One, because you were extraordinarily passionate about your craft or two, you found a way to make money without working for someone else.
So how is it we fall into the quicksand of minutia that keeps us from doing the things we love most?
Bad habits.
Well actually three bad habits. These bad habits become a big time trap that can be quite exhausting over time. Imagine being in a cage running for hours and hours upon end on one of the circular tread mills never ending up anywhere new.
These three bad habits are often in our blind spots so I thought I’d point them out.
One is when we put on blinders, roll up our sleeves and just try to get through all those pesky tasks ourselves. We convince ourselves that hard work is admirable and no one else could ever do it as good as we do.
Two is the rationalization that it’s too hard (or expensive, time consuming, etc) to delegate to someone else. Even though we continue to throw tons of cash towards new learning and marketing that doesn’t ever pay off, we steadfastly believe that hiring a dream team is just too costly.
Three, we keep saying yes to new opportunities even though it just adds more stress. The addiction of new ideas just piles on more and more to-do’s and you end up overwhelmed and feeling behind.
It’s not serving anyone for you to get bogged down like that so here are six ways to liberate yourself and spend more time doing what you love.
1. Get clear on what your energy tasks are.
There are certain activities that give you energy. Uncover what they are so that you can focus on spending 80% of your time doing them. Typically these energy tasks will be based on your strengths and passions. You’ll know you are doing them if you get juiced up!
2. Block out time at the beginning of each day for “energy” tasks.
Once you know that your energy tasks are consider scheduling them at the beginning of your day. Once you kick your energy up, you can tackle some of those more challenging or less thrilling activities.
3. Delegate your minutia to other people’s strengths.
My friend and colleague John Assaraf often says delegate tasks that are “playtime” to other people. Activities you find challenging will be other people’s “energy” tasks.
4. Train for ownership
Instead of handing off a slew of tasks hoping they are done properly, train your support team to take “ownership” of the completion of a task (or project, role, assignment, etc.) A properly defined ownership mentality will set you up to eliminate unnecessary questions so you can focus on your own energy tasks.
5. Liberate your time drains with technology
Consider using technology for tasks that waste a lot of time. Two biggies are scheduling appointments (we like Genbooks.com online calendaring tool) and managing customer information (I’m a big InfusionSoft CRM fan.)
6. Stop shoulding on yourself.
Focusing on what others say you “should” do is just as poisonous to your energy as a list of to-do’s a mile long. Especially when the “should” isn’t even effective or aligned. Take the shoulds off your plate and enjoy the liberation.
Discover how you can liberate yourself from the long list of to-do’s, triple your profitability and revenue while spending more time doing what you love most. Melanie Benson Strick, The Big Idea Catalyst & Leverage Expert for entrepreneurs, is offering a free training called The Entrepreneur’s Secret Weapon at http://www.entrepreneursecretweapon.com.