Are you so busy working in your business that you forget to work on your business?
Are you so occupied with the day-to-day tasks of your business that you forget to take a step back to look at the bigger picture? Taking time to work on the business and not just in the business can mean the difference between struggling and thriving - especially in times of uncertainty.
What a difference a two-letter word can make. Let’s dive into the difference but only briefly because I got a feeling that you want to get straight to the steps you can take.
Working in your business
When you are working in your business you are basically concerned with execution. This means communicating with customers, producing content, coding or designing, fulfilling orders (if you’re in e-commerce), paying invoices, and so on.
These are all important and necessary tasks in relation to the revenue of today but not that of the future.
Working on your business
Working on your business means that you are focused on the future and preparing the business to be in a better place tomorrow. It is activities like strategic planning, education, personal development, goal setting, and automating processes.
These activities are crucial in order to remain in control of the business and to make sure that it is going in the direction that you want.
Both types are important but the working on is often overshadowed by the self-employed and lifestyle businesses because there is so much to do on a day-to-day basis.
So why is this relevant you might ask?
You might think this is all good but why should I spend time working on my business when it is producing the work or servicing the customer that is most important? It is important for two reasons.
- Improving yourself and your business
- Prepare for future challenges
Firstly, regardless of how well your business is doing and how content you are there are things that can be improved upon. If not out of necessity then out of joy. If not in our business then outside of it. There will always be something that you can tweak or try out and working on your business is the time when you get to play around with that.
Secondly, recent years have shown us how big of an impact external factors can have on our lives and our business. We are already living in a time where things are changing rapidly but we’re also facing different types of instability. Although we cannot plan for or predict these worldly changes we can work on our business and ourselves to be better prepared.
“But, I already think about it all the time”
To clarify, I don’t believe that the issue is that you don’t think about how to optimize the business for the future or how to make your day-to-day easier. In fact, I believe that these thoughts in combination with being overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks are what keeps you up at night - at least that is how I feel at times.
So what am I advocating for then?
Working on the business is about intention and attention. It’s about setting aside time to consciously work on the business and in the process acquire the vocabulary, the tools, and the information necessary. It’s putting structure and action to the thoughts so that you don’t have to think about them at night.
Alright, fair enough. I get it. It’s important. But how do I get started?
Start by asking yourself 3 simple questions
We often overcomplicate this process with stuff most people can’t relate to. And that is why I’m offering a three-step process that is so simple that anyone can do it yet powerful enough to actually get you somewhere. Furthermore, it’s iterative which makes it even more powerful for each iteration. The questions are:
- Where am I right now?
- Where do I want to go?
- What steps can I take to move toward where I want to go?
Let’s break them down a bit and then I’ll leave you to reflect on this.
Where am I right now?
This forces you to think about the current conditions. It’s quite an open question but I still want you to be specific. Describe it in detail. It’s not enough to say: “I’m working too much” or “I don’t make enough money”. These are important feelings but they don’t tell us anything about the current state of affairs. How much are you working? What are you spending your time on? How much money are you making right now and why is it not enough? Answering these questions with numbers and specific information is the key to unlocking the power of the next two questions.
Where do I want to go?
Indicates a sense of direction and destination (although the destination can change along the way). It paints a picture of what the ideal could look like. The same principle as above applies here. Be specific Describe it. Visualize it. If you want to make more money, how much do you want to make? What will you do with what extra money? If you want to work fewer hours then tell me how many hours you wish to work. By getting specific you are setting goals that can then be measured and evaluated. It's necessary in order to create an actionable plan.
What steps can I take to move toward where I want to go?
Is also a directional question. However, this goes one step further and seeks to build the bridge between direction and actual route planning. The more specific and detailed you’ve been in the two first steps the better you can develop an actual plan that can be put into motion. And don’t hold back just because you don’t quite know how to do this yet. It’s okay if you want to automize but knows absolutely nothing about automation. That you can learn or get help with. In this step therefore it is crucial to keep an open mind and try to list all the steps that you could take to get closer to the goal. The whole idea here is to, with intention, develop plans that require you to learn new things and try new things or improve existing things with new methods.
I’m challenging you to leave your presumptions and beliefs about what you can’t do for some reason at the door. We’ll tackle that at a later point and it is not the mindset we want at this stage. For now, I just want you to keep an open mind and set aside some time to try this out.
Next week I’ll post an example where we go through this process step by step. You can read that here
Remember there is no right or wrong only the process of you taking some time to take care of yourself and your business.