Anytime I ask someone how they are doing, I often hear a one-word sentence: “Busy.” My response is usually “Well, there’s job security in that.” True enough, after all there is no business unless we are all doing something. But what exactly is the something we are doing?
When it comes to downtime, employees have the benefit of asking the boss what is next or just working off a list of things that need to be done. Entrepreneurs and independent contractors are the bosses, so it falls to us to prioritize what is important. That’s easier said than done when at every turn someone or something is demanding our time.
Most business owners are busy all day long. There are meetings to attend, more meetings to schedule, questions to ask and questions to answer. And just when we believe we all caught up, there is a new little crisis begging our attention. But is the juice worth the squeeze on all these fires we put out?
A horse that plows a sand dune is just as tired at the end of the day as a horse that plows a farmers field. What is in question is whether there will be a harvest. Are we all truly productive during work? Not necessarily.
Busywork itself is just a series of actions that consumes time and energy. It’s running on a treadmill versus going for a jog in the park. You exert yourself just as much, but you get nowhere. Still, you can technically say you logged in two miles even though you are exactly where you began.
A lot of our activity each day does nothing to improve our company. Like it or not, business development involves speaking to prospective clients on the phone and making cold calls in person. It’s not glamorous, but effective.
Instead, the average professional goes into the office, perhaps for a sales meeting or morning huddle. While there, he or she chitchats with colleagues while sucking down some coffee. Then, there is a luncheon to attend which may or may not be with a customer. The afternoon is spent figuring out a glitch in the computer or some other menial task, followed by correcting some paperwork from last month. It's been a full day that has accomplished very little.
Yes, creating marketing that brings customers to us is important. But how much time does that really take? If ordering advertising and proofing the copy for it, or choosing color palettes takes up the majority of the day, one has to ask, “Is this the highest and best use of my time?”
Still, we go home at the end of the day tired, convinced we did… something. But if we actually took each minute of activity into account, we may be surprised at how much time we unknowingly wasted. I’m not calling anybody lazy, because I would have to be right there with them. But the truth about how we spend our time is quite appalling.
I did this very experiment a few years ago and realized I had cheated myself out of valuable time. What I thought was a 40 or 50 hour work week, was considerably less when compared to the business I generated. I had a nasty habit of investing in time-waster activities when I should have been doing more to invest in my business.
I looked at all the things I would need to move the ball down the field be successful. I then considered what was "strategic" time or operational activities. That which is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. For an author, writing counts, so this article is truly work for me.
Then I labeled everything else as "tactical" time or administrative activities. It’s not dialing for dollars or making sales presentations. It’s all I do to support my sales: paperwork, research, ordering more books, even cleaning my desk, etc. I started making real progress once I realized the importance of pursuing operational time verse administrative. But making coffee and engaging in gossip counts as neither!
A lot of these concepts were developed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was an Army officer. It is how he was able to prioritize what was most effective. But I brought these ideas into the twenty-first by tracking my time with a mobile app.
I use Timesheet.io which has a mobile application as well as desktop version. It works just like an actual paper timesheet, but I can categorize what I am doing into whatever category I create. Some functions could be:
Prospecting,
Sale calls,
Marketing,
Planning and organizing,
Professional development,
Networking,
Social media,
Customer service,
Recruiting,
Research,
...or anything else that comes to mind.
The Timesheet app can be found at, https://www.timesheet.io/en/