We typically think of entrepreneurs as people who guard their time more closely than a lion standing over its freshly-killed prey. But when you delve into most of their lives, you find something entirely different. A lot of entrepreneurs are wasting time – and many don’t even realize it.
Part of it comes down to a lack of experience. Many business founders don’t understand what their role entails and spend a long time trying to figure it out. Nobody teaches them the basics. Other entrepreneurs waste time for psychological reasons. Mostly, they’re trying to put off unpleasant tasks, such as firing employees.
Then some entrepreneurs think that being busy is the aim of the game. This misconception means that they’re always on the go but never actually getting things done. They’re stuck in a kind of loop!.
Ninety percent of entrepreneurs are wasting time, and it’s a tragedy. Only a small minority are maximizing the hours they have available during the day and increasing the chance that their startups will succeed.
Don’t be a time-waster. Here’s what to do.
Do The Most Difficult Tasks First Thing In The Morning
Have you ever noticed that you have the most willpower and energy in the morning, and then it slowly ebbs away as the day drags on?
If so, you’re not alone. Psychologists think that people have a “stock” of motivation that recharges overnight and gets drained as the day goes on. That’s why you’re okay drinking a revolting green smoothie in the morning, but want take-out pizza by the time you get to the evening.
Entrepreneurs need to tap into this biological quirk. Instead of putting off tasks until after lunch, get on with them immediately when you get to your desk. Fire off all your most challenging emails and do your “brain work.” You can leave low-value admin junk until the afternoon. Nobody is going to miss it.
Stop Trying To Do Rote Tasks Yourself
Entrepreneurs like to feel as if they’re doing something during the day. So, for that reason, they’ll often take on low-value tasks that don’t get them closer to their overarching goals. Many never find a virtual assistant to answer the phone or organize meetings. Instead, they do it themselves, thinking that it’s normal.
The reason this happens comes down to a lack of appreciation for the value of time. As a business leader, every moment of the day is precious. It’s not your job to get involved with your operation’s nuts and bolts – unless you’re right at the start of things. Instead, your task is to figure out who should be doing what and when. It’s also your role to think about direction and strategy – big picture stuff.
Again, the vast majority of entrepreneurs don’t understand or implement these concepts. They mistakenly believe that it is their job to do rote tasks and that any deviation from that is a sign of laziness. It’s not. It would help if you adopted the mindset that you employ other people to do stuff for you to focus on your area of expertise. Your goal is to create a business that makes money – not one that cuts expenses to the bone.
Stop Paying So Much Attention To Needy Clients
Most people who study business are aware of the Pareto rule. It’s the idea that 20 percent of the inputs are responsible for 80 percent of the outputs. It’s an empirical rule that emerges from the properties of the normal distribution – a mathematical concept that shows up again and again in the real world.
Paying too much attention to needy clients is one example of how the Pareto principle can work against you. In general, a small subset of your customers consumes a large fraction of your business’s overall resources. Twenty percent of clients, for instance, could eat up 80 percent of your customer service resources.
We live in a culture where “the customer is always right.” But business leaders need to think carefully about whether this is really the case. Sometimes the economics just don’t work out. You’re spending so much time and attention on a small subset of people, and you’re poorer as a result. Often, it isn’t worth providing the level of service that they demand. It’s just too much hassle.
Stop Worrying About Problems That Don’t Exist
Some high-anxiety entrepreneurs will often worry endlessly about mission-critical threats. But most of the time, these never occur. And even if they do, there’s not a huge amount you can do about them in advance anyway. If there’s a war, pandemic, or the government suddenly changes the rules, you’re stuck. You have to either adapt to the situation or exit the industry.
Worrying, though, takes its toll on your cognitive performance. If you have all these grinding concerns in the background, you’ll never feel like you can flourish. That sensation gets in the way of the creativity and originality you need to stay at the top of your game – and industry.
Stop Indulging In Unnecessary Meetings
Entrepreneurs love to talk about their ideas. But there’s a time and place. Most meetings aren’t necessary. Business leaders conduct them because they feel as though they are essential. But often, there’s no need to take people away from their roles.
You can, however, put a stop to this sort of thing. One idea is to set strict time limits on meetings. If people have something to say to their colleagues, they should be able to do it in less than 30 minutes. Another idea is to get meeting organizers to fill out an email form, which describes precisely the value the meeting will bring.
Indulging in unnecessary meetings is one of the best ways to create confusion and eat up your time. Think about how much you could get done if regular meetings weren’t a regular feature of your itinerary. It boggles the mind just how much time businesses waste internally just going around in circles, talking about intractable problems they can’t fix.
