It’s time to talk about time management. As a business owner, time is one of my most precious commodities. But I can’t be everywhere at once, so the way I structure my time is absolutely crucial to my success in my daily management.
First things first – my diary. I use an electronic calendar, but I don’t have an EA that manages it; I do. One of my best tips is to colour code each business activity, so you can see where you are spending your time – or not! For example, networking, training, business, clients and education are some of the categories I have created. My team all have full access to my diary as well, and know when to schedule appointments in according to each colour. It syncs with both my ipad, iphone and also our client CRM.
In terms of my activities, I like to follow strategic coach, Dan Sullivan and his entrepreneurial time management system. Typically, I spend Monday, Wednesday and Thursday’s meeting clients, and then Tuesday and Friday on the business and networking, which might be cleaning up issues, team meetings, marketing and anything else that pops up. This means my team knows exactly what I’m doing, and I can consolidate my time on specific activities, instead of working backwards and forwards.
I am very, very lucky to have a fantastic team that supports me. Without these guys, I’d be far less organised and it makes all the difference to the way my business runs. I give them authority, I give them leadership and I give them responsibility to make decisions – so I don’t have to. That means trusting them and providing the right training to help them set goals and be equipped to make decisions. The benefit is that I don’t get bogged down in the day-to-day, but can manage from a strategic and planning level.
Finally, we all record the time spent on each task, whether it’s related to a client, practice management or education, so we can track what’s efficient and what’s not. We are continually looking to improve our efficiency across the entire business, but without knowing how long each task is taking, we are flying blind.
There is plenty more to write about time management, and while it’s not taught at school or university, it’s fundamental to running a successful business. I’ll be going into more detail about time management as it relates to different areas in business in forthcoming blogs.
