Accounting For Entrepreneurs

Business owners who are experienced know that their time is precious and limited. They know they are not going to be able to do everything so they focus their time on the tasks that will bring them the greatest benefit.

We talk about "experienced" entrepreneurs because many entrepreneurs have had to learn the productivity lesson. Many entrepreneurs have spent years trying to tackle the most pressing tasks on their own, causing them to lose focus of the important things. These are the tasks that will grow and improve your business.

You can learn from others' experiences and get the support you need early on. Rather than waiting for burnout, stagnation or a lack of progress, you will be able to see the value in learning from them.

TIME IS THE BIGGEST RESOURCE FOR EVERY BUSINESS OWNER.

A popular time management analogy is about rocks, pebbles, and sand. It goes something like this. Imagine that you have a jar full of rocks, small pebbles, and sand. The rocks represent the most important tasks on your business owner's to-do list. The metaphorical mediums of the pebbles and the sand are all the smaller tasks that are less important. You won't have any room for rocks if you fill the jar first with the sand and then add the pebbles.

The moral of this story? You won't be able fit the rocks into your jar later if you don't place them first. You will not have time to do the most important strategic tasks for growth if you fill your time with small tasks.

Ask yourself these questions when you are trying to decide how to prioritize your time.

What can I do to make my business more profitable and grow?

You have many options for where you can spend your time to achieve growth and improvement.

• People to hire
• Marketing campaigns
• Improvement of the sales process
• Delivery of products or services

There are many tasks that must be done in order to run the business day to day that won't affect the growth.

It's a constant struggle between the things that need to get done and strategic planning and thinking. You may be able to develop a process that allows you to 'just get it done' and can be repeated or automated repeatedly.

One-time solutions can be more cost-effective than doing it a thousand times. It's more important to come up with a systemized solution than simply getting the job done. You would, wouldn't you?

SETTING UP A SYSTEM

We follow David Allen's Getting Things Done method. This system is a standard part of most task management software today. It's also incredibly powerful. You simply find ways to capture everything you need and then you can do it.

• Clarify the tasks and add the details you need to complete them.
• These items can be grouped into your top priority to-do lists.
• These documents can be reviewed to ensure that you are aware of your next steps.
• During executions, attack them one at a time

You should be able to:

• You can create tasks anywhere you want with just one click (or perhaps two).
• For clarity, add more detail to your tasks
• Drag and drop these tasks to order by priority.
• To hide any work you aren't currently doing, create sections in tasks.
• You can check-off your task by deleting it.