Strategy starts with you

The goal of this bootcamp series is to help you strengthen your business, plan and prepare for growth.  That’s why we’re starting with you: how you spend your time and what adjustments you might want to make.

You’re central to your business’s future.  It requires your experience, insights and vision of course, but it also requires your time.  Uninterrupted blocks of time; time when you can think, review, conceptualize.

If you’re like most business owners we know, you may not have that kind of time.  You’re constantly busy with the demands of the business.

Unfortunately, it’s non-negotiable; your business needs your time and focus, probably more than it needs the day-to-day problem solving that occupies you.

There are no more more hours in the day, so you’re going to need to start by thinking about how you spend them.

Are you running the business, or is it running you?

How did you spend your day today?  This week?  How much of what you did required your specific skills and expertise? 

What could have been delegated to someone else… maybe not right now, but once you’d trained someone, created processes, built trust.

There will always be issues that require the owner’s time and attention.  But there are many that don’t.  Particularly if you figure out who can handle them, how to handle them and start to create the framework to make this happen.

Too hard?  Don’t have the time and money?  

Think about this: if you had several hours blocked each week for planning, what could do that would significantly change your business over the next year?

Activity isn’t necessarily productivity

Let’s be clear: you’re not alone.  This is a problem many business owners face.  Perhaps it dates back to the start of your business, when you had to do everything.  Maybe it’s that you’re so knowledgeable, so thoughtful that everyone wants to come to you.

But, if you’re honest, perhaps some of the problem is you.  It’s gratifying to feel active, needed, to be the center of activity.  And draining as it is, it’s easy, in a way.  You don’t need to prioritize if you’re mainly reacting to whatever issues are thrown at you.

Those are in your face, important to your business right now.  Strategic planning feels less imperative; tomorrow’s fine.  Spending – heck, “wasting” – time in the middle of a work week, just sitting around planning, feels indulgent.  It can be hard to see what you’ve accomplished.  

You worry you’ll look back at the day and feel like you wasted time.  

But when you look back in three years, which type of activity will you be more grateful for?

Charting your business’s future… and yours

Running a business is all about managing limits: you have a limited amount of funds, need to optimize inventory, ensure your staff is operating efficiently.  But the most important limit is your time.

You’re never careless with money, inventory or employees.  Are you being as careful with your time?

This can feel theoretical, so let’s talk specifics: 

  • What’s the single most important problem in your business right now and when did you last dedicate real time to thinking it through?
  • If you weren’t there for thirty days, what would break first?  What does this say about how your business should be structured?

Questions like this have real value to your business.  Value you’re not creating.  Because you don’t have the time.

So the first step to building the business you want may be to redesign the role you need to be doing.  How do you want to be spending your time three years from now?  What can you start doing now to you get there?

Want more help improving your time management? Access our full list of questions here.