I have a simple reflection for you today. Are you drowning in busy? Here are three questions to ask yourself in case you’re not sure:
- When do you cross a task off of your list?
- When it’s done?
- When do you feel satisfied with the work you’ve done?
- How do you feel about multitasking?
- Multitasking is your best friend
- You focus on one task at a time
- How many times do you check your email per day?
- At least 20 times
- Once or twice
If you answered “a” to any of these questions, then it’s pretty likely that you’re busy, but not productive.
One of my favorite animated movies is “Up”. The distracted dog cracks me up! OK, the story is sweet too but I love the dog. He reminds me of shiny object syndrome, that entrepreneurial killer weakness of unfocused distraction from the core goal that can kill a business. As I speak with other entrepreneurs, especially since the pandemic and every one going online, almost without exception they talk about how busy they have become. So busy in fact, that despite spending more time working from home, they seem to be spending less time with their families. They’re definitely working harder, but they aren’t always making more money, which tells me that they probably aren’t being more productive.
Here’s what seems to be a typical day for many entrepreneurs. Tell me if this sounds familiar to you. They start their day by grabbing their phone, briefly checking the morning news, and then scanning their texts & email for anything urgent that may have come up since midnight when they last checked. The 45 new emails are a glaring reminder of how busy their day will be. They hastily fire off a couple of texts or emails to respond to clients or team members, jump in the shower, dress quickly, grab a cafecito and a piece of toast, and either walk to their desk or head to the car to drive to the office. In front of their computer, they scan through their now 55 emails and reply to one that seems important. Then it’s time for their 9 a.m. zoom meeting. Fortunately, it ends a few minutes early, so they respond to a text that just came in on their phone, turn back to their now 70 emails, and try to pare down the list by deleting and archiving the ones that don’t seem that important. They are part way through responding to another email when the phone rings. It’s a client who needs a deadline moved up on his project and wants a few changes. The busy entrepreneur checks in with his employee running the project to let him know and then heads back to his office for another meeting. After the meeting, his employee checks in to review the changes. “Looks good to send!” the busy entrepreneur tells him and turns back to his computer to tackle a few more emails. Finally, at 5:00 the phone stops ringing, the emails slow down and the office grows dark. Enjoying the quiet, the entrepreneur focuses on his remaining emails and a couple of action items he had promised to get done that day and heads back to his car around 7:00. Arriving home he eats the dinner left on the warming element, settles into his favorite chair with a glass of whiskey with the TV on in the background, and scans through more emails on his phone until bed.
While that may sound extreme to many of you, for others at least parts of it are all too familiar. If they do, then consider this an intervention. The reality is that you will never get through all of your emails. And if you have 20 things on your to do list, you simply aren’t going to get them all done. You will kill your company if you try.
What your company needs you to do is to set the direction. It needs you to get the right people on the team, create processes that will support their efficiency, train them and then take off their training wheels so they can ride. They will fall. They will skin their knees a few times, but the more you trust and empower them, the more they will rise to the challenge.
As an entrepreneur, you have three priorities. The first is to your team. You may be surprised that I’m prioritizing the team before clients but having the right skills and culture on your team, and making sure they know how much you truly care about them will naturally incent them to bring in new clients and treat those clients in such a way that they will want to stay with you. An important part of prioritizing your team is also looking outward at the market to make sure that they have the skills to succeed. Your second priority is to your clients because your business won’t survive without them. But that doesn’t mean that you should be the one delivering for each client and you don’t need to be in every meeting. Make sure that one person in your company is responsible for each of your clients and that they know their paycheck depends on fulfilling your company’s commitments to that client. Focusing on clients also means having a strong vision for market direction and making sure that your products and services are ready to compete. Your third priority is the structure and financial well-being of your company. You need to be constantly looking three steps ahead at the market, and at the capacity of your team to make sure that you create a structure and staffing that isn’t too heavy, but at the same time doesn’t place too much of a burden on individual team members so they end up burned out. So that’s it; team, clients, and money in the bank. Those are your big three.
With that in mind, when something crosses your desk, ask yourself;
- Will it help the team?
- Will it help our clients?
- Will it put more money in the bank?
Unless you have a clear “yes” answer then your two options are to delete or delegate.
No matter how many things are on your “to-do” list, each day grab a sticky note and write your top 3 priorities for the day that meet at least one of those 3 criteria. When you’re inclined to dive into scanning emails, refocus on your top 3. Take a look at your calendar for tomorrow. Are there meetings planned that you can cancel, delegate or postpone because they don’t meet your top 3? Can you shink an hour meeting down to a 15-minute quick check-in? Do all participants really need to be in that meeting?
Are you delegating enough? Could you hire a part-time assistant to scan your emails to deal with things that don’t require your personal attention and perhaps ask you quick questions that would allow them to handle more items on their own?
Here are some more tips to staying afloat when you’re drowning in busy:
- Don’t let other people hijack your to-do list
- Triage requests that come in during the day to determine if they’re urgent or important
- When you delegate a project, delegate the approval. Learn to trust your team.
- Learn to make your default answer, “I’ll add it to my list” rather than “I’ll jump in and do it now”
- Carve out specific times of the day for emails
- Recognize that multi-tasking isn’t real
While all of this may sound logical, I realize how tough it is to throw yourself a life preserver when the waves are crashing around you. Sometimes you just need one of those guys or gals from Baywatch to rescue you. So make it a point to partner up with another entrepreneur, perhaps someone in a similar field, grab a coffee, and walk them through your typical day. Ask them to view it with a critical eye, looking for areas where you may not be focused on the right things. Or if you’re more of an introvert then log your day like a food journal. Chances are, you’ll be able to look back at it and recognize at least a few opportunities to become more productive.
Remember the words of Stephen Covey, “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”