I don’t have the time is something you hear a lot in business, however, its a fundamental business priority to make time for the things that improve Your business to get done. Starting and running a business is tough, let’s get that elephant in the room out of way immediately.
I have made this journey several times through my career, sometimes for others and sometimes for myself. It doesn’t get much easier as your business matures either, due to the constant pressure to improve your products or services and increase sales and revenue.
After all, there is no such thing as a static business, you are either moving forward or backwards.
Having said that, the benefits of running your own business for many overshadows any pain you have to go through.
When I am approached by businesses and entrepreneurs to discuss marketing and sales “I don’t have time” is a common theme. The overwhelm of so many things to do on a daily basis becomes a disease in your mind.
“There’s so much to do I end up doing nothing” is usually the end result.
As a social & digital marketing consultant and business mentor, I talk to a lot of businesses of all sizes from SME to PLC. It’s my job to get inside the “What, how and why” to bring clarity, focus and drive to their business.
It was several years ago I had an “aha” moment when it became blatantly clear ‘I don’t have time’ really means “It’s not important to my business”. Now before you get irate and hot under the collar, let me explain.
When something is fundamentally important in your personal life or your business you will get it done.
A test of how important something is to achieve can be summed up as follows:
Imagine someone told you that if you didn’t get this task done today you would die tomorrow, would you get it done? Regardless of what else you had on your plate faced with death as a result of not getting the task done focuses and prioritises your mind to achieve it.
So flipping this back to the priorities in your business if it’s that important you will find the time, using the “I don’t have time” statement means you have degraded the importance of the task, and the value it will bring.
So how do we stop the disease of feeling that you don’t have the time?
I call it WIN = ‘What’s important now’.
There are many areas of your business that take up time but have zero ROI, in fact, I will guarantee that you do stuff every day that has no direct impact or benefit to your customers, sales and profit.
So why are you doing it? Isn’t it better to pay someone else to do it for you, thereby releasing you to do the things that make a difference to the future of your business and work-life balance?
I’m a fan of lists, whether it be written or digital. Lists give you a set of tasks that are important to achieve to move your business forward. You can identify the most important tasks, what it will do to improve your business, and when it is reasonable to achieve it by.
The secret to lists is being honest with your self, and not getting dragged into overwhelm. It’s better to succeed in “incremental bite-size chunks” in the knowledge that every day you are moving forward, than setting too many things to achieve in a timescale that is never going to be met.
I hope this post has helped you understand that you’re not alone and that simple changes in your mindset can achieve miraculous things in your business.
What action do you take to get rid of the disease in your mind that stops you achieving your goals?
