Lara McCulloch

Lara McCulloch

On Posted on by Lara McCulloch to Business Inspiration

shifting out of neutral . 3 tips to think for tomorrow

In Monday’s post I identified ‘5 ways to know you’re stuck in neutral‘. This week will be dedicated to working through those issues.

Issue number 1…you’re caught in today thinking. In other words, you’ve stopped dedicating time to thinking about the future of your business. Instead, you’re caught up on mundane day-to-day tasks.

This has to be one of the most common complaints I hear from SMBs (small / medium sized businesses)…and one of the most frustrating for business owners.

There’s one thing that every one of us have in common. We all have 24 hours in the day. It’s what we choose to do with that time that will set us and our businesses apart from the crowd. I have three tips that I share with my clients to make sure they stay on the path to success and use their time wisely.

1. Understand your Time
For 1 week, write down everything you do and how much time you spend doing it. If you own an iPhone, 2 applications that will help you do just this are HoursTracker and Eternity Time Log. The key here is to understand how much of your time is spent doing things that are meaningful to your business and how much time is spent on distractions. Divide the items as follows:
Strategic – time that is spent focused specifically on building your business
Necessary – time that is spent doing things necessary to the running of your business
Time consuming – things that are needed to run the business, but take up excessive time
Time wasting – time that is spent on unnecessary tasks

As a business owner and strategic thinker it’s so important that you spend as much time as possible propelling your business forward. The more time you spend answering emails and sitting in unproductive meetings, the more time you take away from building your empire.
2. Consider Outsourcing
Focus in on the time spent doing ‘necessary’, ‘time consuming’ and ‘time wasting’ things. Ask yourself:

Does it cost me more money to do it myself than it would to outsource it?
Is it something I’m not very knowledgeable about?
Is it something that is not my business’ core competency?
Could I be spending my time doing more important things if this wasn’t on my plate?
If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you may want to consider outsourcing.
3. Dedicate a Day
Dedicate 1 day a week to building your business. That means no meetings, no emails, no excuses. This is usually when I hear groans and proclamations of disdain: “How can I live for a day without emails?!?” and “My staff need in meetings!”. So, let’s break this down.
Emails
According to a report published in October 2008 by the New York-based research firm Basex, interruptions such as spam, other unnecessary e-mail and instant-messages take up 28% of the average business person’s day. On top of that is what Basex chief analyst Jonathan Spira refers to as recovery time — the time to get back to where you were before you were interrupted, which Spira says is 10 to 20 times the duration of the interruption.*
Meetings
When done well, meetings can be a fantastic resource for collaboration, brainstorming and decision making. But when was the last time you were in a productive meeting? Unfortunately, these have become as rare as unicorns and pots of gold.
Imagine replacing this time with thinking about your business goals, how to attract your dream clients, how to retain your star clients, how to differentiate your company, how to improve your products / services. Stop imagining and as our good friends at Nike say so well, “just do it”.
Image via maldiviandude
*Source: Gawker

Lara McCulloch-Carter
Author of the Special Event blog ready2spark
Director of Marketing – Regal Tent Productions
Past-President – ISES Toronto
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