June offers such promise of the fun times ahead of us. Day trips! Cookouts! Road trips! To boot, after 15 months of quarantine, I’m betting your 2021 Summer Bucket List is full to the beach-hat brim of places to go, people to see, and hugs to give.
Yep, You’re ready to DO ALL THE THINGS!!!
But wait a minute, don’t you have a business to run? How about ALL THE THINGS in your business? You know those aren’t going away!
Ah, the eternal struggle of the entrepreneur: How to choose what’s fun while doing what needs to get done?
Making hard decisions in the face of temptation is a struggle for most people. When you’re a business owner it’s even harder, because the stakes are higher. You can’t live by the adage of “have dessert first” too often, or you won’t have much a business. You also don’t want to hyper-focus on business to the point where you completely forego the fun.
Case in point: A new team member joined BB&A last week. I planned to spend the weekend preparing trainings and compiling tasks for her to work on. But I didn’t. I let the Fun Stuff eclipse the Necessary Stuff, and by the time she arrived for her first day, I heard myself saying, “Shoot! My day is booked.”
What happened next is why I love my business manager, Kate.
We looked at my schedule and for each occupied time slot, Kate asked me one simple question:
Will what you do in this time help your business grow?
It turned out that my 10 o’clock, while important (read: fun) to me, was not going to impact my business growth. Turning my attention to a new team member and making her feel welcome, informed, and valued would reap benefits a lot sooner. The tasks and client work I could delegate to her would free up my time for a little more of “the fun stuff.” I had to delay the gratification for a short time to gain in the long term.
So I rescheduled my 10 am call and spent time focused on growth.
Then guess what? I found the time to do the fun things.
It’s kind of like when your mom said, “Eat your veggies, then you can have dessert.”
So this season, the one we’ve looked forward to with great anticipation in the Return to Normal, challenge yourself with Kate’s Great Question before you commit to time on your calendar. I bet the results will surprise you.
