Prioritising time in your business

By Rupert Turton

Some truths about time

It isn’t possible to manage time, we all have 168 hours every week! There will never be enough time to do everything you want to do, more so when you own or lead a business so you have to focus on what is most important. This is not as easy as it sounds.

Think of time as money, how can you invest it wisely? In some ways it’s even more challenging than money in that with time once it is gone, it’s gone! Whereas with money when you spend money you still have the opportunity to make more!

The language we use when discussing time is very similar to money, we spend it, we invest it. The question is do we invest our time wisely?

Just take a moment to reflect on how you think about time? How often do you waste time? How much of your time do you spend doing things that are not very important to you or your business?

What are your priorities?

Let’s spend a moment thinking about a few of the things that shape how you spend your time.

Firstly, how much do you need to earn to cover your basic costs, like accommodation, food, and other bills and how much do you want to earn to fund your lifestyle, holidays, or evenings out?

Then, how much are you worth per hour? How much will someone pay you per hour for the work you do? From that, you can work out how many hours you need to work to earn enough money to maintain you and your family.

The question is now, what do you need to do to have that many paid hours?

Hang on! How many hours do you want to work each week? If one of your priorities is to spend more time with your family or friends or doing other activities such as theatre or sport you need to consider that now. These considerations will also shape what times you want to work, 9 to 5, maybe an early start and early finish, or maybe more flexible to fit in around the other activities. In many businesses, there are core hours when you must be available so what are those?

Don’t forget to include time for self-development and business development. It’s all too easy to put everything else yet it is highly important to focus on your own continuous professional development as well as spending a few hours a month to stand back from the business and review it without distractions.  This is not wasted time, it’s crucial to your well-being and your business!

Finally, what are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? You can’t do everything so get someone else to do the other stuff. If you can earn £100 per hour can you hire a PA costing a fraction of that to do your admin and free up 20 hours a week of your own time?

Where should you focus your time?

You can’t do everything, so focus on what gives you the best return for your effort. There are two main drivers for where you spend your time;

·      Urgency or preference – It is so easy to just do the immediate task, the one that you have just agreed to do, or the task that is more fun than the others on your list. Working this way has negative impacts as it will result in you always being busy, and you’ll never have time to complete the important tasks, the ones that drive your business forward.

·      Importance  – This is the work that drives your business forward and ultimately allows you to succeed. In many cases, these important tasks may be things you don’t like doing so you end up reverting back to the preference driver.

What you can do…

Get in the habit of making a list of the tasks you need to complete and then decide which are most important to you. Block out time in your calendar when you are going to do them, so you focus the time on getting them done and you are not driven by external events.

Consider the tasks you can delegate to others, and ensure you leave room in your daily schedule for those tasks that are reactive (such as unforeseen problems).

Only plan what you can realistically achieve in a day starting with the big, important task you must achieve and then fit in the smaller tasks around them! Stephen Covey explains this brilliantly in his video amusingly named Big Rocks

Once you have a plan, make sure you do the work you planned to do when you planned to do it.

A few thoughts…

• As a rule of thumb don’t pick up other people’s tasks or attend meetings that give you no value. That said, it can be difficult to achieve. Sometimes you need to attend meetings to build relationships such as networking or help your colleagues out if they are becoming swamped at work.
• Avoid swapping between tasks. Your brain takes time to re-focus on a task every time you swap, so stay in the flow!
• And remember no one can multi-task! It’s a myth!

You can’t manage time; all you can do is decide where you are going to focus your effort. Decide the parameters that you want to work within to balance your work and life, and then focus on what is important to you. 

If you fancy a free coaching session to talk about re-booting your time priorities, schedule a coffee and a chat with me here.