December 5, 2011

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Are you your own worst enemy?

You can tell a lot about an entrepreneur by the way they spend their time.  We all spend our time in various ways. Many small business owners tell me that there’s not enough time in the day to get everything done. Personally, I believe there’s always enough time in the day to do all of the things that are ‘worth’ doing. The key is to identify what is worth your while.

The Busyness Trap

Sometimes activity or ‘busyness’ can be a form of anesthesia to dull the pain of not achieving the results you want. Action is always better than procrastination. On the other hand, more activity is not always better.

What about ‘busy’ activities? If you’ve ever spent your day — stuck in back-to-back meetings, responding to routine questions from your team, answering emails, and tidying your office, then you know exactly what I mean.

It’s easy to spend large amounts of time on ‘busy’ activities. In fact it is possible to spend all your time on these activities, creating the magnificent illusion that you are hard at work, simply because you are … so busy. You are working hard, but you have very little financial results to show for it. Your day is full of tasks and as it draws to a close you are exhausted – so you must have put in a hard day’s work, right?

Unfortunately, these habitual ‘busy’ activities can keep you trapped – simply maintaining and not growing. By filling your  days with tedious and mundane tasks, you are in effect avoiding the very activities that you  know will really move your business or career forward and produce tangible  results – what we might call ‘productive activities’.

These activities rarely happen automatically. They require focused attention. And, all too often, they get relegated to ‘tomorrow’ or ‘sometime soon’.

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