How many times do you hear people say this phrase in their personal and business lives?
I was contemplating this question whilst reflecting on the Business Growth Seminar we ran last Thursday.
We were joined by 17 business owners and worked through the seven key business drivers to grow your business profits.
Everyone identified a number of key action points that they could take away and implement into their business. They even calculated the potential increase in profits that could be generated if those actions were implemented into their business. The minimum profit improvement identified by them was greater than £50,000, a fairly significant amount and for some more than double their current level of profits.
I got to thinking about how successful those businesses could be over the next year and I paused to reflect; How many of those business owners will take action and implement those plans and how many will state that they never had time.
So, how do we find the time? At Aspirations, we help business owners to implement their actions and achieve their identified growth. One of the tools we use to do this is my “First Things First Matrix” and I’d like to share that with you today.
You start by analysing the tasks that you do every day and categorise them into the table according to their Importance and Urgency.
Box I: High Importance and High Urgency – Get on and do it now!
Box II: High Importance but not urgent, this is strategy and planning – make time in your Outlook Calendar to set aside time to do on a structured basis
Box III: Low Importance but urgent – This is fire fighting and problems, create systems to deal with them e.g. Frequently Asked Question list
Box IV: Low Importance and not urgent – delegate to someone else
Once you have allocated your tasks into the matrix take action to deal with them in the most appropriate way and always have in your mind:
- Am I the best person to deal with this?
- Should I being dealing with this as CEO of the company?
Action exercises
Here are two things you can do to put this matrix into action immediately:
- Write a list of all your activities that need to be done on a piece of paper
- Split them into the four boxes above and prioritise your tasks
I’d be delighted to hear your stories, success and challenges with sorting your time out.
In the meantime I’d like to leave you with a quote;
“You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.” – Charles Buxton
Next week I will be looking at the subject of delegation.
Tony Kensington, FCCA
