Here are some of the most common statements I hear from the business owners I meet:

“I am putting in 70hrs a week into my business and I feel like we’re getting nowhere”

“I want to be a great parent/spouse/partner but my business consumes all my energy”

“I’m always putting out fires“

“Vacation?!? I heard about that”

And the most common one by far is –

How do I get more done in my business without putting in more time?

If the statements above seem familiar, my dear friend know that you are not alone.

Many of the business owners I meet feel overwhelmed with the amount of stuff they have to do every day. And that’s not even taking into account their personal life.

This overwhelm is usually causing procrastination and kills their focus, so at the end of the day, many feel like they’ve done 100 things, but it has barely moved the needle for their business.

So that’s where most of them are when they reach out for help. They know something has to change in how they run their marketing and visibility, and they have a hunch that improving that side is going to get them more revenue – hence more freedom.

They expect a groundbreaking miracle working strategy that gets them the results they want overnight. I can share and teach them how to implement high converting funnels or marketing tactics in their communication, content and social media, but that’s going to cost them more time if they don’t understand one important thing.

So then I gently break this news to them –

To achieve what you desire, you need to learn how to get more done in your business without investing more of your time.

This is where most of them gasp with surprise – is that even possible?

You and your business are attached at the hip

I get it. You have a business. And it is your baby. You also have a goal to succeed and you’ve most likely put a lot of hope in seeing your baby grow like they do in fairy tales (overnight?). It’s likely you’ve invested a lot of time, effort, knowledge and maybe most (or all) of your savings.

You need to see this baby of yours become a success. So you put in every waking hour you can afford into its success.

I can totally relate.

Before baby Mara came on board, I was running three businesses, manufacturing, shipping, doing my own taxes, learning, reading, doing sales calls, events, running, cooking, cleaning the house, traveling.

In short, I used to do a crap load of stuff in a day.

On my worst day I was still able to do get more stuff done than what most people do in a week. I have a unique mix of clarity, high energy, motivation, curiosity and an ability to multitask which combined with the pre-baby luxury of having as much time I wanted, created a monster of efficiency in getting shit done.

All of that went down the drain with a baby in the house.

But it was also the moment that I came to realize –

More time in does not necessarily equal more progress

In fact, some of the most successful and energetic business owners I’ve met have learned or are working towards, becoming what I’d call a fine-tuned efficiency machine.

So, how did they get there?

It’s a complex process that takes time and a lot of knowledge about who you are and what makes you trigger.

There are two essential skills you need to develop if you want to get more done in your business – without putting in more time.

work your time management muscle

I mention in other posts – nobody teaches us how to plan, set goals, and prioritize. It is something we have to learn by ourselves and it is something that we have complete control over.

For entrepreneurs, time management is not an optional skill.

In fact, if you ever wish to get to a moment where you can get shit done without putting off ten different fires, while being there for every meeting, doing everything for everyone, never having enough time and not knowing where you should focus your strengths, it’s time to take a hard look at how you spend your days.

Start by finding answers to the questions below:

• Is it mandatory that you take part in every staff, client, or supplier/partner meeting?

• What can be moved to another day or week?

• What are your expectations about meeting goals?

• Are those expectations realistic given your time, financial resources, staff, knowledge?

• Do you find yourself saying Yes to everyone and everything?

• Do you know what’s on your agenda for next week or next month?

• Do you plan ahead or do you keep things “spontaneous”?

• How do you organize your work schedule? Do you have any reserved days for marketing, sales, management, or does everything happen as it comes?

• How clear are you on an average morning about what needs to be done?

• How many hours do you work on an average week?

• How many hours would you like to work on an average week?

• What can’t be done by anyone else in your team, that you have to?

• What is something that you hate doing?

When you have your answers, look at your calendar and start moving things (I assume you are using a calendar, if not the best time management tip I can give you right now is to START using Google Calendars to schedule your meetings – and reminders).

Here’s how you can save even more time:

• Plan your calendar every Monday

• Give access to your team to your calendar

• Schedule one or two staff meetings per week where you need to be

• Move meetings that are not a priority

• Let your staff take off some tasks of your shoulders like flagging emails that need your input, answering to customer support inquiries, scheduling sales calls, handling partners etc

• Reserve days in your week when you only focus on one category in your business, like on Tuesday morning you work on marketing, that’s when you get shit done for the entire week

• Break down your work day into a couple of categories, such as 1hr every morning is for planning, 3 hours is for handling a massive task, 1 hr is for answering and sending emails, then 1 or 2 hours could be calls

• Set boundaries: you never work more than X hours in a week

• If during your Monday morning planning you realize you need to stretch your goal for the week, figure out what needs to be re prioritized and learn how to say No to things that are not important at this moment

• Schedule your weekends, holidays, date nights, dinner outs ahead of time and put them in your calendar

• Finally, start planning in ahead of time – a week, a month, the next quarter

learn to delegate

Ok, so if you got this far, you’re probably thinking “this time management thing is awesome, let’s do it”. The next essential skill you need to develop as a business owner who wants to get more done without spending more time is to learn how to delegate.

Sounds pretty easy, right?

Well, it is a lot easier said, than done – and here’s why:

Delegating will bring out many of your worries, fears and personal limitations

So, many of the business owners I have talked with about delegation mention that although it makes complete sense to do it, it also brings out some of the worst things in them.

For instance, although you are all in your business, you love what you do, you have to accept you are not perfect, you do not know everything, you can’t do everything.

What’s worst is when you discover you have some control issues because you like things done a certain way, some self impostor thoughts because there’s someone that can do it better, some trust issues because you don’t believe that other people will love your business as much as you do, so they will not bother to do a good job.

If you’ve resisted delegation before it’s likely you have also thought that “it’s hard to teach someone how to do it like you like”, or that you “will lose time doing the work twice because that other person will screw it up”, or that you “don’t have whom to delegate to either because you don’t know people who are capable to do it, or you believe you don’t have the resources to hire someone to delegate to”.

Dear business owner if any of the above sounds familiar, it’s totally ok.

Here’s how to develop your delegation skill:

• Think about your business five years from now – where are you, what are you doing, and how much time are you working

• With that in mind, ask yourself if you are willing to do the same thing 5 years from now (eg: putting off 100 fires a day, not trusting your team to handle stuff for you, slaving away in the office 70 hours per week, never being able to switch off your phone because there’s nobody there to pick it up, not going on holiday because your business stops if you are not there)

• Look at your average work schedule, tasks and figure out what it is that you like doing, what you are really good at, what you hate doing, what you suck at

• Figure out how important the above are to scaling your business

• Ask yourself what would it mean for you to be able to take out 10hrs per week from your schedule?

• How can you invest those 10 hours back in your business? (eg could you do more sales calls or focus more on business strategy rather than spend 10 hours writing a blog posts, posting on social media or answering emails?)

• Make a plan of what you would like to outsource and spread it out over 1 year

• Set up a budget for what needs outsourcing and rank those tasks by priority for your business

• Outsource everything you hate doing ASAP (when you hate doing something you will resist it with every ounce of your being, which means it is usually pushed further and further until it either doesn’t get done, or gets done really bad, outsource that ASAP)

• Get help for what you suck at or hire someone to do it for you (eg: if you suck at copywriting but don’t want to hire someone in house either get better at by reading a book, taking a course, using a coach or hire a freelancer)

• You can find interns to handle some of the easy tasks or ask for help to someone in your family

• Develop systems and processes that help you teach and show others how something is done in your business

Final hint: learning to delegate implies a mindset shift. Don’t worry if it feels difficult – as you practice, practice, practice you will discover that it gets easier with time. And you will also begin to feel more confident and happier as you delegate to people who do it better or faster. And that’s ok – it doesn’t make you any less of a business owner. But in the process you learn to become a leader.

“If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself.

If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.”

– John C. Maxwell, American author

What are your thoughts about this? Let me know in the comments.