Time management has always been a problem for me. It's easy to have great intentions of what you're going to accomplish in your day and before you know it you're sideways dealing with employees, answering client questions, and reading www.mgoblog.com for the latest college football recruiting news.
I'm also an entrepreneur that struggles with letting go, letting the people in my company who are better than me at many things do the things they do. I get caught up in small tasks that aren't my job or aren't' worth my time.
I was having this exact conversation with a good friend of mine and inspiring entrepreneur, Brent Weaver of Ugurus. Ugurus is focussed on helping web developers build their business. Brent has created a "bootcamp" wherein the attendees learn how to move up the chain and sell $10,000 projects versus the $2000 projects they typically sell. The idea is that it takes just as much work to sell and service at $10,000 client as it does a $2,000 client. Accepting this as truth, which type of client would you rather have? If you're in this space I highly recommend you check them out.
So it will come as no surprise to learn that as I was expressing my frustration with my poor time management and how I was spending time Brent challenged me.
"How much is each activity you do worth?" He asked.
"Uh, no idea."
"How much should each activity you do in a day be worth? What is the dollar amount of each type of activity you need to be focussed on each hour to make this year's goal?"
I just stared at him slack jawed. I'll be the first to admit. I shudder at the conversation of budgets, financials, etc. But I wanted to know more.
"What do you mean?"
"Look, you're a business owner. You need to be spending your time on high dollar activities. I know that if I want to do $5 Million in revenue for example I only have so much time. I can't be spending my hours on $50 activities. Or $100 activities. Or $1000. My goal -- now I know it doesn't always work out that way is to spend my time on $10,000 hour activities. These are efforts that are designed to bring in $10,000 worth of revenue to my company."
Insert whatever you imagine for your mind being blown here. I had just been enlightened.
"Here, do this"
Brent quickly sketched out the following chart:
"Now as you go through your day log the activity value of what you're doing. If you're spending your time on $10 or $100 activities work on delegating those and moving your efforts to the right on the Activity Value side of the ledger."
I thought this was a genius way of maximizing what we all don't have enough of: Time.
I haven't perfected it yet, but it is something I think about every time I get bogged down in a low value task.
The beauty of it is, I know if eventually I can fill my day with $10,000 an hour tasks -- we'll be a $5 Million dollar a year company and then some.
So what do you think? Is maximizing your time with a time ledger like this effective? Make sense? Sound crazy?
Join the discussion and leave your comments below.
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