It's Time to Say No Customer Blog

Running a business these days is challenging! Between people demanding your time and a to-do list spanning the office, you never quite feel like you can ever catch up. Here’s the thing: when you’re busy playing catch up and only working IN your business and not ON your business, you tend to miss out on opportunities that can keep you ahead of the market.

Budgeting to say No.

Think about it: whenever something new hits the market, you can always find a business owner somewhere talking to himself saying “How come I didn’t think of that??”. The key to business success and getting that edge on your competitors is simple: Time.

Time is a scarce resource, and often you don’t have enough to work out is whats important, and properly plan your business goals. To turn this around, first you need to understand your weekly workload and how you are spending your time. Using an importance/urgency matrix (created by President Eisenhower and popularized by Steven Covey), you can bucket all your work into one of four categories:

1. tasks needed now that are important (category 1),

2. tasks needed later that are important (category 2),

3. tasks needed now that are NOT important (category 3), and

4. tasks needed later that are NOT important (category 4).

Simple right?

If you think about your weekly workload at the beginning of each week, look at your to-do list and place each task into its appropriate category. After this is done, pull up your calendar for the week and allocate all your category 1 (important and needed now) tasks out across four days of your week. These are your must-do jobs for the week, regardless of anything else – you MUST get these done.

Next, assign half a day a week (Fridays tend to work best) to work on things that aren’t time sensitive, but still are important (Category 2). Additionally, block out the other half of this day for training, research and planning (we’ll get to this bit later). If you still have spare time, allocate some Category 3 tasks. Now the kicker: don’t bother with your Category 4’s.

Ronald Reagans famous words about the American Budget still ring true today, and apply to time as well as money. “Balancing your budget is like protecting your virtue. You have to learn when to say no.”

Bottom line? Tasks allocated into the fourth (and often third) category are not worth your time. If they are not due soon, and especially if they are not important to you, let someone else take responsibility for them! Push back on the people asking you to do these tasks, politely letting them know that your time is spent working on larger priorities.

Train up & plan ahead.

After taking your time back, begin investing some of it keeping your skill-sets sharp. Half a day of your week should be blocked out for training and research: tasks that are often forgotten, dismissed or just filed in the “someday when I’ve got more time and money” basket. Use and treasure this time, it is your chance to grow yourself and your business, exploring advantages within your market so you can be the person launching that new innovative product.

Look to expand your skills and expertise around related areas of your industry. The sharp rise in services and information on the web is no accident, as an increasing number of individuals are turning to online training to up-skill and refresh their knowledge on key topics. It makes sense really:

- You can learn anytime, anywhere

- You can access cost-effective content from world-leading knowledge experts

- You can review content and lessons at your own pace, and revisit content to refresh yourself and your staff.

You only have to see technology based sites like Learnable and the American College of Technology in how they supply specific training courses to realize that services such as these are fast becoming people’s training classrooms of choice.

The Result.

Begin to prioritising your weekly workload and you will be amazed how much more you can accomplish. Once you begin pushing back on tasks that don’t matter and clearing your schedule up to let you focus on the important stuff, next time you launch your latest innovation you’ll hear someone over your shoulder muttering “Damn… Why didn’t I think of that??”

Edward has a depth of experience within the world of marketing at both large and small companies having worked for Microsoft all the way through to currently working for 99designs, and has also spoken at several Australian Universities around online marketing and the role it can play in our current global market. In his spare time outside of his laptop, you'll find him training for a triathlon, or daydreaming about ways he could chase Winter around the globe with his snowboard.