I am often asked; “How much time I should spend working on my business and how much time I should spend working in my business?”
Here’s a simple model that will help you get an inside track on where I believe you should be in terms of the balance between in your business, on your business and on yourself. Please note that I’ve also found that this principle applies to all, from sole-trader to the leaders of multi-million and multi-national organisations. The busier we get, the less time we focus on development and growth.
This is something I have come up with after many years in business myself starting, growing and selling businesses. The one constant in all that I have learned, including the people that I have worked with, currently work with, and will work with, is that they spend the majority of their time working in their business. In the early years it is absolutely right that we do spend the majority of our time working in our business because working in our business means that we are delivering what the business does, beginning to grow our team and make money.
The trick is in knowing when and how to grow beyond just being busy.
For the majority of people what then tends to happen is, as people get busier, they spend a higher and higher percentage of their time working IN their business, leaving less and less time to work ON their business – and even on themselves. In fact, most people sacrifice working on their business and on themselves to work more and more in their business as they get more customers and get busier.
If not now, this tipping point will come to you, at some point soon. I want to share this with you today so that you can see it coming, act now and be ready for it.
So what is the answer?
A very simple model really. I believe people should be working 60% of their time in their business, 20% of their time on their business, and 20% of their time on themselves.
When I say time, I mean the total amount of time you assign to work, not the total amount of time in a week.
Let us look at a simple example: George has a working week of 40 hours over 5 days. Using my model George would spend 24 hours working in his business, 8 hours working on his business and 8 hours working on himself.
Take a moment to be honest with yourself, are you actually doing that or something like that, or are you just running week to week, month to month hoping your business will grow? Please trust me when I say, your business may get busier, but it will not grow.
“Growing does not have to mean bigger, but it always means better.”
Like many preconceptions in business the term ‘grow a business’ and ‘build a bigger business’, seem to be intrinsically linked. The reality is that growing a business does not have to mean growing a bigger business, but it does always have to mean growing a better business. It is absolutely right that some people do not wish to expand their business in terms of employing more people, having a bigger office or more locations. That does not excuse any of us from our responsibility to grow a better business.
Tipping point 1; when you find yourself sacrificing working on your business and on yourself time just to service more customers, you need to grow into different customers.
Want more detail? Read on…
Let us say that you are now working 60% of your time in your business. What does in your business even mean?
In your business means the time spent doing what a business does; for example delivering your product or service, marketing, sales, social media, admin and networking. Anything related to these tasks are still working in your business. Unfortunately, so many people I talk with believe that marketing, sales, social media, networking, admin etc, are working on the business activities when they are not.
How to break down ‘working in your business’.
You are now spending 60% of your time working in your business doing all the things that a business does, including delivery, marketing, sales, social media, networking and admin. My recommendation is that you spend 50% of your time in delivering what your business does, and 10% of your time on other business activities – marketing, sales, social media, admin, networking et cetera
Tipping point 2; when you find yourself spending more than 10% of your time doing admin, marketing, social media, sales, networking etc; now is the time to out-source.
George’s continuing story: George now has a model that supports growth – remember, growth means better, better you, better business and better future. He is working for 20 hours delivering what his business does, 4 hours on other business activities as described above, 8 hours on his business and 8 hours on himself.
Sounds good right? So why are you not doing that or at least working towards that now?
George now has 8 hours to spend working on his business and a further 8 hours working on himself, what will he do? The simple reality is that most people do not know what to do with that time, and neither did George, so he just filled the time with more customers. Not a bad thing you may say, but where is growth in that strategy?
(What George is doing, and what you could do with 16 hours is beyond the scope of this article, call me if you want the answer or wait for my book next year)
“You will never out earn your learning”.
I believe that if we are going to grow a successful business, not only do we need to work on our business, but we also need to work on ourselves. Without constantly improving ourselves in our business, who we are and how we work, all we can ever expect to be is busy, doing more of the same things we have always done. Of course, if that is all you ever want, then doing more of what you have always done is absolutely fine. What happens when you run out of time though?
I believe that as responsible business owners, partners, directors or managers, we have a duty to work towards a better future for us and those we love. The Japanese have a word for this – Kaizen, which in its shortest form means ‘constant improvement’,
If this Jarvis Principle interests you and you want to know how you can apply ‘constant improvement’ for a better business, drop me a hello message or book a call.
Book a call with me here to talk about building constant improvement into your business.
Work with me:
I help owners, founders and leaders create a scalable business that works without them, build a world-class team, and 10x profitability. Book a call with me here to see if we could work together.
Remember, there are only three types of people – those who make things happen, those who wait for things to happen, and those who talk about why things don’t happen for them. Which one are you?
