I woke up this morning and realised: 3 days. 3 whole days. Of jack shit. I haven’t done a damn thing for Betty all week.
Ok, that’s not completely true. I’ve been keeping up with emails and working on some upcoming interviews (that I think you’ll love!) – but have I done anything of substance to move closer to my big picture vision? Sent out the quick survey I’ve planned? Submitted those guest posts? Locked down my brand words? Brainstormed my sales pipeline concept? No, no, no, and no. And boy am I embarrassed to share that with you… but it’s true. This week, the make-shit-happen lady (yup, someone really called me that on Facebook last week!) has been making shit happen not so much. Cringe!
Sadly my 2 hours each day have disappeared in emails + daydreaming + doing-stuff-yes-making-a-difference-no bullshit. I lost my focus for a moment and have spent the past few days working entirely IN the business, instead of working mainly ON the business.
Do you see the difference? When we’re working IN the business we’re doing business-as-usual type tasks; we’re maintaining the status quo. When we’re working ON the business we’re strategizing and innovating; we’re changing and creating and growing. ON covers all your business development stuff.
Every entrepreneur needs to find their own right balance between working IN and ON their business or project. With only 2 hours a day to spare, if I want anything to happen with this baby, for now focusing ON the business is definitely where I want to be most of the time.
Working IN the business is an easy place to get caught up. We can end up spending way too long there. She’s an evil temptress of comfort and busy work. If you’re like me and want to up the amount of time you’re focusing ON your business, here’s some ideas:
• There’s no easy way around it: If you want to grow your business you’ve gotta lock in time to make it so, make it sacred, and make it happen.
• Schedule in a regular time especially for business development (say every Friday, or a couple of days each month, or a week every 6 months).
• Commit to doing it (Publicly lock yourself in: You could announce your plans to all your Facebook buddies or tell a pal who’ll nag you mercilessly until you do it or even blackmail yourself like Joel does).
• Set boundaries and stay focused on what you really want (say no to stuff you don’t want to do – learn how here – and keep yourself focused by writing a STOP DOING List like my buddy Amanda’s).
• Use a tool like the Self Control App to lock yourself out of sites you find hard to resist (can anyone say email?) during creating time.
And shazam! Hello business development time. It’s a ginormous relief to meet you!
I bet heaps of us have struggled with finding our balance between working ON and IN our businesses. I’d love to hear from you so we can all learn:
01: Do you struggle to find time to focus on business development?
02: Share 1 way you make time to work ON your business, and not just IN it.
BLYB xo
- Like I need a stiff drink
- Inspired
- Like I can do anything
- Like Im at a yawn-fest
- Fascinated
- Excited
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Love this post Kate! I am always finding that even though I’ve spent hours on my business each week, it’s not getting me closer to my goals. I think I’ll start using Fridays as “big picture day” and commit to building rather than maintaining on that day. Thanks for the inspiration! xx
Great idea Kimberley! Friday’s a great day for business development. Re-aligning yourself to your big pictures goals, taking a step or 2 towards them, and setting up the coming week sounds like a great way to wrap up the week to me! Let me know how you go xo
Can so relate to this :/
Thanks Paula; I’m so glad it’s not just me! I hope you can start setting aside some time to actively get closer to your dreams AND actually stick to it
Let me know how you go xo
OMG this is just what I needed to hear today after weeks of feeling like I’ve been banging my head up a brick wall because I’m spending too much time IN and not ON and people around me just don’t seem to get it. The only saving grace I have is that I flat out refuse to learn a simple but important task that gets done in one of my core business, a cafe – yep, as much as a coffee afficionado I like to think I am I flat out refuse to learn how to make coffees. And you know why – not because I’m above it or because I think I can’t do it or anything like that, but as someone said to me early on, if you learn how to make coffees, you’ll get stuck behind the machine and not get to the work you really need to focus on. If I want to grow our baking range, even though coffee can be the bread and butter to keep the shop front ticking over for the moment, it will only ever remain a coffee shop and never become anything bigger, better, more innovative. Drinking my coffee will help me get through to achieving the big picture, but making it aint going to help me do the work that needs to be done to get there. Sorry to my team who keep “suggesting” I learn to make coffee – one day, hopefully you will understand.
Wow i can so relate. I feel as though January has disappeared under an avalanche of busyness and yet i’ve not done the tasks that most matter to me. It’s been a really interesting observation. Also i have been questioning whether i’m at all realistic in what my expectations are of myself….. Hmmmm
Thanks for sharing, Kate. I really struggle with this. My current schedule sort of looks like 6 hrs a day responding to and processing emails (e.g. delegating tasks to subcontractors or popping things into our project management system.) 3-4 hours of actual work. 2 hours working on launching my new business in the evening.
I’m so buried responding to client emails, I can barely find time to do my actually work on client projects, let alone launch the new business. I know this will change soon as I get the new business launched and remove myself from being a project manager, but for now it’s completely overwhelming…and I feel like my clients must think I’m a flake for often taking a full 24 hours to get back to them (which seems unheard of in today’s ultra-connected world’.)
A few things I do to help with the email madness and lack of time to work on the business are 1) ‘batching’ emails (setting a fixed time to check and process them all in one-go, 3 x per day) so that I have to squeeze in a few hours of uninterrupted time to work. 2) Not answering the phone unless it’s critical. 3) Plan mini ‘vacations’ to actually do my planning and work on the business (4 per year) where I can set up an email auto-responder and not check email for a few days.
I’d love to know if you have any tips for Service oriented businesses to not get sucked into the email trap and work more on their business, not in it.
Laura, thank you SO much for sharing your situation. WOMAN it sounds like you’ve got heaps going on! I totally get that dealing with email can feel like a huge burden – in fact I hand-on-heart promise to share a bunch of tips in a post on this topic next week xo
Can’t wait! Thanks, Kate.
I love this swift kick in the pants wake up call Kate – as I, like so many others here, have most certainly gotten caught in that cycle!
But your point about making it SACRED is the key for me. My business will NOT grow if I don’t grow it – so if that means putting off answering emails for 24 hours and setting aside a full day of PLANNING so that the rest of the days can be fuller of implementation.
For me, once a month check-ins feel just right…and it feels like NOW is the best time to start with it
.
Like Sabrina I schedule in monthly check-ins that are SACRED! There’s no way no how I’m breaking those. Doing this is a carry-over from my corporate job (IT Sr PM/Scrum Master) and it just makes sense.
Good stuff, Kate!
I totally struggle with finding time to work on business development. The good news is, I’m always dreaming and thinking of the big picture. The bad news is that I rarely sit down and focus my dreams into clear goals and objectives.
When I do properly prioritize, I do so by telling my employees “I’m on lock-down”. I put in my earbuds, pump out some jams, and I don’t make eye-contact with anyone. My employees know not to interrupt me with phone calls or questions. Once I even heard them tell someone who was there to see me that I wasn’t there. And I was clearly sitting. right. there. But, I was on lock-down and my boundaries are clearly defined when I’m on lock-down: “pretend I’m dead”.