According to E-myth, you can take these tips into consideration to start prioritising your work and start finding your ideal work balance.
- Start by tracking your time. Write down what you do every minute of your workday. Be thorough. Be accurate. Do it in “real time.” Don’t round up to the nearest five minutes. Provide a brief description of the activity. Track your time for at least a week. You are gathering raw data, and the more the better.
- As you track your time, create categories for the things you do. Come up with about 6 to 8 broad subject areas (Sales calls, Management, Training, Admin., Fulfillment, Finance, Personal, In-transit) that give you a broad picture of how your time is used.
- After a week or two, analyze your data. What are the numbers telling you? What percentage of your time do you spend in each category? How much of your time is devoted to simply maintaining the status quo – repeating routine tasks? What is the work that you do that supports the greatest long-term, strategic value? How much of your time is spent in activities that further your business goals in tangible ways?
- Identify one routine category – or perhaps a collection of activities – that clearly should not be yours. (By the third or fourth day of tracking your time, there is bound to be an assortment of activities that begin to embarrass you to even document!)
- Make a plan to free yourself of those selected tasks. Make that hand-off a priority. Pick a date for when you will have freed yourself of those functions. Commit the time now to prepare for that transition and think about how you will reapportion your time more effectively when you have rescued yourself from that work.
These simple steps will allow you to clearly see the assumptions you're making and the habits you've allowed to define your role. These steps by E-myth will help you see how those assumptions have distorted your sense of self-value and clouded your vision for the company you desire.
In practical terms, these assumptions control your time, dictate your work, and keep you from creating the business you want and the life you desire.
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