One frustration I have with my clients is that we talk about things that are important for them to do and they won’t make time in their schedule to do them. They won’t say no to the urgent so the important gets put off. I understand this attitude.
We entrepreneurs are motivated, make that inspired, by the possibility, the new idea, creativity. Typically we hate the boring, the routine, the predicable. Just think what I could miss if I scheduled 2 hours every Tuesday to review reports! I could miss a call from an important client. A employee might have a question that only I could answer. I might get a new idea for a whole new product.
The problem is these things do happen, but not on schedule. So Tuesday gets taken up with annoying interruptions and questions others should be answering. And the reports never get reviewed and problems never get solved because you want to stay available to whatever might happen.
Can you imagine raising kids like this? We won’t plan dinner time because who knows when anyone will be hungry or get an idea for a really inspiring meal. Bed time? No way. What if some great idea occurs at 10pm. Time to get up? No! People will be too tired from staying up waiting for that great idea. School? Too regimented. We’ll home school them so we can teach them exactly when they’re curious and ready to learn. If you ran your house that way, you’d never even be able to schedule a vacation.
The truth is, as much as we hate to believe it, some routine, some schedule actually opens up more space to be creative and accomplish more. Schedule routine meetings (short and frequent) with your key people and the interruptions will go down. More time there. Block out time to review reports regularly and you’ll see (and solve) problems when they’re small. That helps you accomplish more.
What if a client calls or an emergency comes up while you’re in a meeting or some other scheduled even? It’s actually rare that something comes up that you can’t put off for a few hours, and when one of those things can’t be delayed, you’ll know it.
Creativity? You can’t schedule that. But you don’t have to drop everything just because you had an idea. Figure out a way to capture those ideas (carry note cards and a pen or a mini-voice recorder) and schedule time to work on them later. You may find out that by waiting the good ideas improve, and the bad ones become more obvious and waste less time.
Takeaways:
- Schedule between a third and two thirds of your time each month. Really – that much.
- Half of that scheduled time will be with other people – half will be alone to work on projects.
- Plan short, frequent routine meetings with your key people
- Read relevant reports on a regular basis
- Plan time to develop systems and reports
- Let people know your schedule to avoid interruptions
- Carry something to capture ideas – then review them later
