19 Nov 2009

Focus on the Actions that Matter

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Business, Living, Making Money

staring yourself in the mirrorAs an entrepreneur, you are often faced with the difficult task of trying to squeeze 2 days worth of work into a single day’s worth of time, which not only leads to increased stress, but also affects your efficiency.

When you try to do too much, you end up doing nothing, but still worn out by the end of the day.

When I first started my online business, I wasted hours trying to learn everything from web design to copy writing, none of which I became a pro at, but all of which wasted valuable time that I needed to use for other things.

When this happens, it’s important to take a step back and evaluate a couple of things:

1. What are you good at? Knowing what tasks come easy to you can help you realize what tasks you should focus on. If you suck at web design, then outsource it and quit wasting your time. A smart business owner knows how to leverage their time so that they can get more done. As a blogger and online marketer, outsourcing has a lot to do with that.

2. What actions make you the most money? Sure, spending an entire day working on improving your blog’s load time (as I did recently) might have a positive effect on your business over the long run, but does it do anything for you now? Furthermore, does it make you any money?

Alternatively, writing blog posts is an action that help you make money. Creating products can help you make money. Refining your email marketing funnel can help you make more money.

I’m not saying that you need to spend 100% of your time on money making efforts, but as a beginner, especially if you have a 9-5 job that occupies your day, you need to make the most of the time you have.

Prioritizing

Once you’ve determined what skills you have and what actions are most important for your revenue, you can start making a list of priorities. I recommend making an A list, a B list, and a C list.

For example, here is my list:

A:

Blog Posts (3x per week)
Planning and Perfecting Products
Marketing (Social Media and PPC)

B:

Community Engagement (Social Media, Blog Comments)
Guest Posts (2-4x per week)
Recruiting Affiliates

C:

SEO
Tweaking Blog (plugins, design issues, etc)
Additional Content (Podcasts, videos, etc)

Now, this is not an all-inclusive list, and I’m using this as an example more than anything, but notice that all of the A level activities are those that can help me either expand my reach or make more money. If I’ve only got a few hours on a single day, then I’ll spend them with my A list priorities. If I get them done, then I’ll move on to B and then C, respectively.

If there are things that you need to accomplish that aren’t on the A list, then you can either outsource them, or schedule a day/time to get them done. However, if you find yourself doing this often, then you either need to re-adjust your priorities or find a way to get more done.
You could also make a list of things that you need to outsource regularly, such as:

  • Guest Posts (from others for your blog)
  • Web Design/Graphics
  • Sales Copy
  • E-Book Formatting
  • Custom Coding/HTML
  • Blog Posts/Content (Niche Blogs)
  • SEO
  • PPC

Again, this list is just an example, but you get the idea. As an entrepreneur, you need to make the most of the time you have. I know a lot of people hate to spend money on outsourcing, but the reality is that if you want to build a business, then you will have to learn to get comfortable doing just that.

I learned this the hard way and it cost me a year as a result. I’m hoping that you can learn from my mistakes and avoid yourself the trouble.

Until you learn to spend money on your business…until you learn to take your hands off…you will struggle to keep moving the ball down field. However, once you figure out how you can leverage both your time and money to get more done, then you will find that your business takes care of itself. If you water it, it will grow.

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  • You inspired to me a lot, it seems to be simple, but if you know how to organise what you have to do, it is like to organize your power, I will write about you and your blog on mine!
  • I like the message in this blog post because I believe that this dilemma is not exclusive to entrepreneurs, but rather parents, school teachers, and anyone for that matter. I recently wrote an article titled Saving a Buck (http://www.jaredyellin.com/2009/10/saving-a-buck/) which discuss the value of TIME versus MONEY. For example, if someone were to spend an additional 20 minutes (10 minutes each way) searching for the "CHEAPEST" gasoline for their car, this would save them about $1.50-$3.00 for the ENTIRE TANK. Is 20 MINUTES worth $2.00? I can only speak for myself, but if you were to compound this amount over the course of an hour, this would mean that the individual seeking the cheaper gasoline would be paying themselves $6/hour, WELL BELOW MINIMUM WAGE! This concept is extremely congruent with what you are writing about because I know many entrepreneurs who live with a "poverty" mentality and feel the need to "save every buck they got," and begin to perform remedial tasks which could easily be outsourced, freeing them to spend their time, energy, and effort on something more productive. When you focus on living in prosperity, you become conscious to the VALUE of TIME, which in my mind, FAR over shadows saving a few dollars.....Great job Nathan!
  • Jared,

    That's a GREAT point. It's easy to get obsessed with saving money, especially if you know that you can squeeze a dollar more out of a purchase if you just do enough research to find the right deal. However, that leads to a scarcity mentality that is not conducive to being an entrepreneur.

    The same thing with Black Friday - why wake up at 4 am and battle a horde of merciless shoppers when I can instead make the extra 50 bucks and buy it from my computer. It's all about abundance.
  • Ah! Great post, again. So much time I've wasted trying to master everything (and becoming a pro and virtually nothing in the process). It would help to focus on tasks that make money (or will make money) and less time doing trivial, pointless things. Thanks again.
  • Yep, it's easy to get caught in trying to do everything...especially in the beginning. I can attest to the fact that it is tiring and it doesn't work well :)
  • Brilliantly put Nathan,
    I was very much like this too - I am always eager to get my hands on every thing...
    But I am slowly learning how to prioritise and delegate my work load.
    There's always someone out there who can do a better job and who is a master at it.
  • Outstanding planning and delegation of tasks is what the successful business operators do all the time. The one thing that bloggers have to realize is that we don't have to do everything, it only slows the progression to success. With limited time available each day, we have to pick our battles and get the most out of that time.

    I have a Thesis theme on one of my blogs that needed to be upgraded to 1.6. A look at the instructions told me that I would be tinkering around for 90 minutes or more, so I emailed my tech guy and asked when he could get to it. He emailed me back back within an hour an told me to try it out - done! In the meantime, I continued working on a product.
  • When I go to make my To-Do List for the next day, I always place the income producing activities at the top of the list. And by the current disarray of my house, this has been a productive income week. :o)
  • Nathan, I have had a similar experience. I love learning new things, but education usually costs a lot of time and money before it makes any! The sneaky thing is that it FEELS like you're accomplishing something.

    The one distinction I would add to your post is that the fact that you are good at something does not necessarily mean that you should spend your time on it. Most of my clients are like me, multi-talented types who are good at everything they try, so our natural impulse is to simply DO it all. My motto to them is, just because you can, doesn't mean you have to. Like you, I encourage people to focus on the things that ONLY they can do, and that make them the most in terms of money and social currency, and outsource the rest as much as possible.
  • Great point. I'm decent at Photoshop, but it is much more effective for me to outsource it so I can work on sales copy, products, and advertising - which are really the cornerstones of my business.
  • Nathan, I really like the A,B,C system of prioritizing. In my business I deal with many entrepreneurs that are worth many 100's of millions. Recently I was asked in an interview what one trait all of these successful entreprenerus shared and that answer is FOCUS. The one thing everyone has equal amount of is time. Learning how to Focus that time is the key to success whether your blogging, starting a business, making a presentation, Internet marketing, you name it. Thanks for the reminder, I hadn't make an A,B,C list for my blog, but I'm going to now.
  • Thanks Rich. This was one of the hardest lesson for me to learn, but hearing your example of the multimillionaires gives me the confidence to know that it was the best lesson I learned over the past 12 months.
  • Hey Nathan,

    I think you really hit the nail on the head with this one. Brian Tracy said if you keep asking yourself "is the activity I 'm doing in this moment the highest value activity I can do right now?", then you will continually be on the path to efficient time management and accomplishment.
  • So true (Brian Tracy is great btw) and it's easy to distract yourself on purpose and pretend that you are being productive.
  • Really excellent post, Nathan!! I think now, more than ever - with social media being so prevalent and the fact we live in an attention-based era - learning to make *best* use of each 24 hours we're blessed with is truly a fine art.

    I love your ABC system here and the very valid points you make about the importance of focusing on what you love and what you're really good at and just outsourcing the rest!! I like to think that by outsourcing I'm also helping others to bring their gifts and talents to the world too as we all love doing different things! :) (Having said that, learning to let go and trust and allow myself to be fully supported is a work in progress for me!!)
  • Absolutely, Mari, and as I pointed out above, if you're good at something you STILL need to see if it's the best use of your time right now, or if it could be done by someone else to free you up for your "genius" activities.
  • Thanks Mari, and great to see you stop by :)

    You bring up a great point, and I agree completely. One of my favorite things about outsourcing is that I get to help other people become part of the game, and that's where the magic really happens.
  • Fabulous, Nathan. I love seeing bloggers speak honestly about all the work involved, and the real need for outsourcing. Because blogging is like any other business, and in any other business you wouldn't try to wear all the hats.

    I mean, I'm probably biased here...but yay outsourcing. :)
  • There's a tremendous amount of work involved...and that's what many people don't get. Sure, you can do it all yourself for a few months, but once you reach burnout...you're toast (no pun intended).
  • You're absolutely right- I think a common trait of entrepreneurs is feeling like they have to figure out everything for themselves and hopefully not having to rely on anyone for anything.

    For example, I have no talent whatsoever for web design or PHP coding, but I spent a long time trying to learn these skills so I could be a more "complete" blogger. Finally, after hours and hours of wasted effort and frustration, I accepted that I'm never going to design a better theme than 90% of the themes out there (premium OR free).

    Just accepting that one fact and shifting my focus to the areas I know I can do well made a far bigger impact on my work than sticking it out and learning everything there is to know about CSS and PHP would have.
  • haha, don't even get me started on PHP and coding. I convinced myself of something similar, and it cost me months of frustration and wasted effort.

    Of course, the next step is finding people that you can trust, but that's a whole new ballgame.
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