One thing we ALL have in common is we get 24 hours in a day.
Richard Branson has 24 hours, Beyonce has 24 hours, Margaret Cavendish had 24 hours, Steve Jobs had 24 hours, Elizabeth Garret Anderson had 24 hours… the list goes on
Think about that for a while…
These people are achieving or have achieved amazing things with the same amount of time in the day as you have!
‘But these are extraordinary men are women I can’t compare myself with them!’
I know this is going through your mind – it’s going through mine too!!
But here’s the thing, there are some lessons we can learn from these people in way they use their time.
They all have done the following:
- Analysed where they spend their time.
- Asked for help – whether that’s childcare, cleaning, admin, mentoring.
- Focused on the activities that have helped them reach their goals.
- Remained true to their beliefs and never given up on their goals!
So here’s a few steps you can take to start making your time more profitable.
We’re going to break this down into two sections:
Section 1 – where do you spend your time now?
Step 1.
Keep a time diary for a week (if you can do a month even better!) write down what you do ALL DAY. This includes being distracted by facebook every morning for an hour and a half (guilty!), washing up, walking the dog, working on your business etc.
Step 2.
Read your time diary and ask the following of each activity:
- Is this moving me toward my goal?
- Is this making me happy (this is just as important as business profit!).
- Does this need to be done be me?
Step 3.
Look at how you’ve rated each activity. For all the activity’s that don’t make you happy:
- If it doesn’t need to be done by you – does it need to be done at all? If no, stop. If yes, delegate!
- If it’s not moving you toward your goal but needs to be done – does it really need to be done by you? If no – delegate. If yes, maybe look at reframing the activity in such a way that it becomes more enjoyable.
- If it needs to be done and is moving you towards you goal you need to work on your mindset to reframe the activity and make it fun!
For all the activities that make you happy, as a rule keep doing these with a caveat…
- If it doesn’t need to be done by you and doesn’t move you toward your goal – keep doing it, however, be mindful of the amount of time you spend on these activities! It’s important to keep doing activities that make us happy so that we can keep creating – I count walking my dog in this category, does it need to be done? Yes, does it need to be done by me? No, however it gives me space to think and I love it so I’m absolutely going to carry on, just not for 8 hours per day…
Section 2 – where does my profit come from?
Step 1.
Analyse your sales numbers and ask the following questions:
- How long does each product take to produce?
- Which product is the most popular?
- Which products give the highest profit?
Step 2.
Look at the time spent on each product compared to the amount of profit it generates and how popular the product is.
This will give you an idea of where you spend your time and how that translates into profit.
What now?
Use the information from sections 1 and 2 above to look at where you enjoy spending time, is that maximising your profit? Is it moving you towards your goals? – these could be two different things!
Can you reorganise your time to spend more on the products which are generating higher profit for your business or on activities that will enable you to reach your goals?
Looking at where we spend time is really important and there are SO many nuances that are unique to you, your product and your customers.
Time is our biggest asset and the one absolute finite resource, use it to help you!
Do what you love and be kind to yourself.
Su x
