Inspired Life…Business Sense

As a frazzled new business owner I vowed to put everything I possibly could into making our company run – if I had to work 80 hours a week I would (and did), I would sacrifice my sleep, social life, and general sense of sanity if necessary (it was), I would oversee and take responsibility for everything…all with a smile on my face.  And that’s how it went for a while.

But I’m tired of that.

I’m proud to now be in our 8th month of business and that is enough time to have some clue as to what we’re doing.  All the what-ifs and how-does-this-work have been more or less dealt with at least once.  We’ve had catastrophes and many triumphs and not a whole heck of a lot scares me anymore.  I’m not an expert, NOOOO, not even close.  I still mess stuff up all the time.  But the fact is that I’ve been able to see things happen for better or worse and that has catapulted me into level 2.

Level 2, of course, is harder.  I don’t get free points and the superpowers I brought along from level 1 aren’t exactly great (still can’t fly).  But the mere fact that I’m here is motivation to keep moving forward.  So I’m looking at what worked and what didn’t and making my next moves carefully.  I’m considering everything I do from two perspectives: the business’s and the customer’s and finding a common ground.

Out of the ‘what’s not working’ category I came up with a couple solutions to try out.  One of my ‘problems’ is the obvious one that I work too much.  But despite being obvious I actually didn’t make the connection until I picked up the book The 4 Hour Work Week.  Until that point I thought it was normal do-what-ya-gotta-do behavior, plus I thought ‘I like working, I don’t want to not work!’  From the minute I opened that book I began having fantasies of sitting in Belize at the end of a palapa with my toes in the water.  Or the other fantasy of having a hobby, like baking.  I realized that I’ve become so engrossed in my business (which is also my PASSION I need to clarify) that I could no longer distinguish between what I wanted to be doing and what I needed to get done for the company.

I will say that the book is seemingly geared toward bigger business, but a large concept is that spending more time on something doesn’t mean that you are more productive.  Being efficient and effective gives you more freedom and will ultimately make your business more successful.  I like it, but I’ve been doing it backwards.

So I set a few goals for myself.

1) Identify the activities that are productive and will lead to better results

2) Determine my main duties and how often they need to be performed

3) Organize and create a schedule that promotes efficiency and lessens the workday

From goal #1 I was able to see where my time is best spent and I created a calendar that would force me to stay focused for a period of time on only those tasks.  For example, Customer Service is a top priority for me but it’s not necessary to be doing it all day long.  In fact, it’s a total distraction.  So I set aside 1-2 hours, twice a day where I will be checking my email and contacting or responding to customers.  My customers won’t suffer because I am available within a couple of hours of their questions and I end up spending 2-4 hours instead of 8-10 answering questions.

I love using Google Calendar, and I set reminders for each of my designated tasks so I’ll be notified before it’s time to change hats.  I also scheduled in a 15 min break between my ‘costume changes’ so I can clear my head and get ready for the next thing.  So, for example, 5 minutes before I need to wrap up Marketing I’ll get a pop up that tells me my next move is Customer Service.  After 5 minutes I’ll take a short break to get up and move around and come back to check email.

I’ve decided to take this schedule seriously for 2 weeks and see how it goes.  If it doesn’t work well for me I’ll have to try something else, but at least that’s enough time to get into the habit of staying focused.  And since I can’t stop things from randomly taking over my brain, I also created a spreadsheet To-Do list that has each category (Marketing, Accounting, etc.) in a separate column so I can just throw those thoughts in there and get back to work.

I’m not at 4 hours a week yet, but it’s a start

This post is part of an ongoing series called Inspired Life.  To see previous posts, please click on the Inspired Life category.