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Master Time Management with One Question

Time management advice is found in great abundance on the Internet.  You can determine how to schedule your day, how to set your priorities, how to delegate, and how to tackle your to-do list. 

As a service business owner, you face an enormous number of tasks and responsibilities each and every day. What I've come to realize in my years of self-employment that my most valuable asset isn't my contact database or my marketing materials or my business plan. 

It's my time.

Most entrepreneurs are time-starved.  It seems everyone wants a piece of you -- your clients, your family, your prospective customers, your friends, your employees or subcontractors.  For most service business owners, there always seems to be too much stuff to fit into too little day.

The most valuable time management question that time-starved entrepreneurs need to ask themselves before agreeing to do something is, "How will this serve me?"  A business coaching colleague asks the same question a little differently, "Is what I'm about to do going to increase the confusion/complexity in my life?"

That's it -- pretty simple, isn't it? So, before I'm about to embark on joining a new organization or committee, or before I'm about to think of another sideline path for my business, I just ask myself this one simple question.

The answer leads me to my next step.

Now, a word of caution here---don't get caught in the "but crack". If your answer is, "Well, yes, it'll be good for my business but it's.....", you've just fallen into the "but crack", which means that you've negated everything that came before the "but" in your thinking. If there's a "but" attached to your sentence, more than likely what you really need to do is the opposite of what you're saying.

So, in the example above, "Well, yes, it'll serve my business well but it's going to take the next 8 weekends to pull it off," it may not be the great opportunity you think if you already are concerned about the havoc it might bring to your life.

What if you're unsure of how this opportunity/task/chance will serve you?  How do you make that determination?

I borrow a page from life coach Cheryl Richardson's book, Take Time for Your Life, and create what she refers to as an "Absolute Yes List."  This is your list of the top 5 priorities in your life.  For most of us that would include spouse/significant other, family, work or business, hobby, volunteer effort, and yourself.  You did remember to include yourself, didn't you? 

Remember, your time is your most valuable asset.  If you don't create time for yourself and make that your #1 priority, I will guarantee you that no one else will do that for you. When I used to deliver my work/life balance speech to various women's professional organizations, I would have the participants create their "absolute yes" list and then take a survey of hands to see how many had included themselves on the list.  Typically less than one-third of any group put themselves on their list, and less than 5% of that number listed themselves first.

If what you're considering doesn't fit on your "absolute yes" list, then it's an "absolute no."  If it does match your top 5 priorities, then give it the, "How will this serve me?" test.

Creating your list of your top 5 priorities and applying the "how will it serve me" question are the two best tools at your disposal as a service based business owner to regain control of your most valuable asset -- your time.

How to Make More By Working Less

Thanksgiving rolled around last year and I decided that I needed a break, so I decided to pay a visit to southern California.  I've been entertaining this fantasy for the last few months that I'd like to move there in a couple of years, as I'm a big fan of sunshine and warm (not hot) weather.  I discovered, much to my dismay, that not only does it get chilly in the San Diego area, but it had snowed in the mountains just prior to my arrival.  For the most part, however, I was able to hang out in slacks and short sleeves and managed to avoid wearing any winter clothing while there.

Every time I go on vacation, I am challenged about whether or not to bring my laptop with me to check email and/or do a little work.  On this trip, I brought my laptop under the rationalized guise that I needed it to look up the different tourist destinations I wanted to visit, and having my laptop along would let me get online to view this info, if I so desired.  In the back of my mind, however, I had also planned to check and respond to any email as well as continue to refine my strategic plan for the upcoming year.

Well, I amazed myself on this trip, and I can credit my hotel for this.  I never even took my laptop out of its case!  My hotel didn't make it easy for me to plug the laptop into a phone line while also having access to an electrical plug, and since getting online would have required me to rearrange my room somewhat, I was just simply to lazy to be bothered to do it.  I was initially a little annoyed at this inconvenience, but then began to think of it as a gift.  I can't tell you the last time when I've been disconnected from a computer and online access for 5 days in a row--that's a personal record for me! Amazingly enough, I didn't even suffer any withdrawal symptoms!

In the weeks prior to my departure, I had been struggling with some ideas about restructuring my business and combine all of my business under one roof.  I had been racking my brain about how to do both without driving myself insane and was only succeeding in giving myself a headache. When I'm at the point of being stuck or feeling overwhelmed, I won't cut myself any slack and take a long or extended break.  Instead I continue to plug away, becoming increasingly frustrated and stuck and not accomplishing anything, and then resenting the fact that I'm not taking any time off.  Not a particularly productive way to be, is it?  Intellectually, I know that to be true, but won't own up to that fact in the moment.

During this trip, I had a pretty big breakthrough about this issue, and the answer came to me crystal clear during the week--on the plane, in fact. I discovered something that I'd always heard but had never found to be true for me until this profound occurrence.  Are you ready....drum roll please......if you want to make more, you need to work less. That's the big secret.  It was only my getting away and not thinking about my business that I found the clarity I needed to move forward.  Had I given in to my inner work demons (and they were quite vocal before I left) that were trying to convince me not to go away but spend this "vacation week" doing all the stuff on my to-do list so I could catch up on all of my back-logged tasks, I believe I would still be beating my head against the wall trying to figure out how to move forward with my ideas that will help me grow and expand my business.

I know that the extra "chi-ching" in my bank account is just around the corner.  Try this principle of working less and see if you make more--I'll bet you'll find it as useful as I did.