It hit me the other day. I had never noticed the similarity. And I consider myself to be quite linguistic if you will. But seriously, how could I have never noticed? Business and BusYness, are only different by one letter. And I think that subtlely says something. In a world full of distractions, many businesses lack the clarity of thought and action. And because of that, they spend their day busy. They’re confused. Is it business or busyness?

Business or BusYness?

So how do we solve this? How do we even answer the question? If you are conducting each day as you have others, you have developed a routine. I ask you, is your routine full of business or busyness?

Take an honest look…

… at your day. Where are you spending your time? Are you spending your time being “busy”? Or are you spending your time conducting “business”? There is a significant difference?

If you aren’t sure how you are spending your day, consider this exercise. It may sound painful (and it kind of is), but you can do it. I actually do this about once a year. For one or two weeks, capture how you spent your time. I’m not talking about timekeeping for time entry or billing purposes. I’m talking about tracking your time for yourself.

When I do this, I categorize my time in the following ways:

  • Administration
  • Client (time spent with client or working for a client)
  • Meetings (not related to client)
  • Preparation (getting ready for a client meeting or presentation)
  • Sales
  • Training (for myself, not training others)
  • Travel (for me, windshield time if I’m not getting anything else done)
  • Personal

After you have done this for a week (or two), take a look back and see where the largest blocks of time are spent. Are there any surprises? There should be. (If you’d like to get my template, drop me an email at jjennings@focalpointcoaching.com).

Evaluate…

… your results. As I said, if you are honest, you probably have a few surprises. Most are surprised at how much time they spend on admin. And I find that when I am doing this, I intentionally spend less time on personal matters. (I believe there’s some sort of “surveyors bias” that explains that).

Now some administration time is necessary. But we often spend more time than we need to in order to obtain the same results we would have anyway.

I encourage my clients to consider the dollar value of the administrative time they are spending and then consider how much of that could be outsourced. There are a variety of inexpensive tools, like virtual assistants, that may be able to give you back some of your time at a rate that is very reasonable and likely less than what you value yourself.

Realize…

… what you could be doing with your time. I work with my clients on an exercise I call your “Area of Awesomeness”. I get them to take all of these things they do in a week and put them into one of four categories:

  • Awkward
  • Adequate
  • Accomplished
  • Awesome!

Everything listed in the first two categories should be evaluated for outsourcing, delegating or elimination. You shouldn’t hang on to any “awkward” or “adequate” items.

A perfect day would be filled with awesomeness, right! That’s what we are shooting for. And if it is, we’ll be less “busy” and more “business”. So is it business or busyness? This serves as a good tool to help you figure it out.

Get Started…

… now if you want to be your best in 2020. Contact me if you’d like to learn how my executive coaching can help you get twice the work done is much less time. If you are true to my system, it can be done.

Contact me today if you want to find out how.