I’m excited about this post and a little nervous. It’s something that’s been on my mind a while and I wasn’t sure how much to share especially about the things that I’ve struggled with too. The thing is, I did a talk to a group of business people recently and someone reached out to thank me for sharing the mistakes I’d made because we all do make them. So I felt compelled to share, warts and all. Sometimes we just need to acknowledge our mistakes, say it’s ok and then move forward. As a worry pot myself I constantly feel defeated when I’ve not spent time working on my vision and doing creative things for my business even if I have achieved 1,000 other things on a given day or week. I have to actively remind myself to look at things as they are, NOT worse than they are.
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Protect your time and energy
There’s a reason behind wanting to talk about protecting your time in this episode and I guess that’s an analogy for protecting your energy too. There was a point in time when I was running my agency, we’d grown super fast and I’d hired a lot of people in a short space of time. And through all that growth, trying to make everyone happy and make sure everyone was ok I had forgotten myself in that formula and eventually I wasn’t showing up for the business the way I wanted to. I started resenting going to work and I wasn’t seeing problems as opportunities anymore. As an eternal optimist I felt negative and through that prolonged period I also became quite poorly with stress, I nearly lost of my eye sight and I hit point where I just said this has to stop.
So the lessons I learned back then are what drive me today to have structure and consistency in my schedule today. I’m by all means not perfect and my hope is that by sharing my story I might give a business owner out there permission to give yourself a break. So to stave off those feelings of defeat and to feel like the business builder you’re meant to be I want to talk about how we have to protect our time to do the things that are aligned with our vision. It flows all the way down to micro activities and the right things to focus on in your business daily.
What to focus on daily in your business?
I’ve talked about making avoidable mistakes in depth in a previous podcast, but in a 1 to 1 this week someone asked me what they should be focussing on daily in their business. I thought this was a great question because as a business owner we don’t have anyone to give us orders and when we’re exhausted sometimes that’d be so nice if someone sat you down and said do this, that and this today. I mean you can have that, it’s called a mentor or coach but I want to give you my spin on the daily routine.
First of all, this is nothing new and I’m no guru on productivity but I do know that how we spend our time has a direct correlation to our results and the life we live. So if this gives you any ideas or sparks of inspiration to get out of your head or out of the weeds, I will be over the moon and I’d love to hear from you.
Let’s get started with my most important life lesson in business.
You need to have time set aside every single day to work on things that are important in your business. I’m not saying the “5am club” works for everyone and it does get a lot of bashing online but I do like an early start.
I set aside time first thing in the morning to work on the business, then it’s done and for the rest of the day that can’t be taken away from me or derailed by one thing or another. That daily time slot needs to be non-negotiable and make it a rule and if you’ve got a team make sure that everyone knows about it and set those boundaries. Phone off, inbox closed, slack on do not disturb and get into the zone…. When you’re in the zone (preferably at the time of day when you’re most effective) you can be working on your vision, creating offers and sales copy, making videos, working on your sales and marketing system, identifying problems you can solve for your market, adding value to your audience and selling. Selling by the way is key. It’s your first role as a business owner.
I’m going to be sharing loads more about planning and my “Three Halves” method soon but for me 90 minutes a day is just enough to focus on one big project or three smaller tasks. I guess that’s rooted back to my childhood when I was in a Montessori school or when my mom would give me 90 minutes to do all my homework before I could go play. It’s just right, not too much that I loose concentration and not too little that I can’t show up consistently for the business.
The other lesson from my days of being a ‘slave to my business’ and when I totally lost all enjoyment from it, was that I was stuck doing all the things. And a lot of those involved tasks I wasn’t good at or didn’t enjoy doing so procrastination became default. There was always tomorrow. So many things would linger around like a bad rash until they became urgent or importantly urgent no matter how many productivity hacks or gurus I listened to. When procrastination Pete is always lurking around nothing will change your results. It’s really key to look at what you want your day or your life to look like before you start planning and creating this structure. A little example, I like to know that there’s one day a week I can spend doing all the things I love - like creating content or designing courses so I make sure that I have one day a week with no meetings. Meetings, chats, coffees etc cannot be scheduled on that particular day of the week. It’s up to me then to make a choice of how I spend that time, I can work late the night before so that all my admin tasks are done and my capture list isn’t a possible distraction so I’m free to as a bird to create. Or I can make a choice and let other peoples’ priorities run my day and I can get overwhelmed, exhausted and feel defeated by it. It’s a choice. One day a week maybe a little hard for where you are in your business right now, so why not start with one day a month? Take one day out of the business to work on strategy. And when you see the progress you can make with that time you’ll find ways to step it up. Allow yourself that space to get stuff done and if you’re not sure where to start, go get some inspiration, get new ideas. Ultimately you want to work a project that will move your business towards your vision.
Going back to the things that you’re not good at or don’t love doing for a moment, that’s ok,. Sometimes we all need to do things we don’t love and that’s. life. The problem is that when you’re in your business, you’re getting interrupted all day long with all the different ways our team can reach us these days and you’re constantly doing things that feel abrasive, it’s not sustainable. That’s where you go to burnout. Where you can though, delegate to elevate! That’s right, you need to know your worth and your time is better spent working on things that are you strengths. You can build a little support team around the other things. I resisted this for a long time and the stress induced illness I brought upon myself wasn’t worth it. The funny thing was that when I eventually stumped up those boundaries and wasn’t available every minute of every day, problems started solving themselves especially as I developed a mantra that if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. Team members would come to me to ask permission or to simply help them decide which solution to implement. It had a great impact on the team too, empowering to solve problems. It wasn’t perfect but set those boundaries and every little micro improvement builds up over time.
So those key hours you schedule are so important to spend on business development. As a business owner, it’s your ability to solve problems, to use your creativity to innovate and find new ways to add value and serve your customers that enables you to build equity in your brand, cement your competitive edge and crack the growth code for your business. When you’re in the flow of doing that you can move from being an operator to being a business builder. And that flow is magic.
Invest in you
On a final note, I also want to touch on investing in the most important asset in your business. You. As well as doing things daily to move the needle in business, I like to set aside time for my self too - I go for a walk, read and listen to a podcast. I love reading and I’ve always got a book on the go, it fills me up with ideas or inspiration and gives me things to talk about! Need some inspiration? Checkout what's on my book shelf.
So my fellow business owner, protect your time, protect your energy so you can work towards your vision more effectively and create a business that loves you back.
Remember, little stuff kills the big stuff!
And if you need a little help, it’s a huge strength to know when to do that and a mentor or a coach and help you go further, faster. To recap then -
schedule non-negotiable time to work on your business daily,
start to set boundaries so you’re not pulled about like a rag doll all day,
take one day a month out of the business to work on strategy and the big picture.
I hope you’ll give it a go and I can’t wait to see your business thrive!
