Time Is Our Most Valuable Asset. Manage It Wisely!
If you own a business, I do not need to preach to you the value of your time. Time is the most valuable asset we have and should be charged…
If you own a business, I do not need to preach to you the value of your time. Time is the most valuable asset we have and should be charged for accordingly. Unfortunately, we can’t get more than 24 hours in a day — but what we can do is optimize the hours we do have.
In this line of work, I get the opportunity to look under the hood of a business and see exactly where time is being spent. More often than not, it’s being utilized in a less-than-optimal way.
Let me explain that last statement a bit more clearly.
Yes, plenty of us waste precious time throughout the day doing stuff that is not adding to our bottom line or improving the areas of our service that need improving.
It typically looks like this: — Spending 30 minutes each day watching snatch coaching drills when your website needs a facelift. — Focusing too much time editing video and photos for social media marketing when your current retention rate is at an all-time low. — Worrying about buying more equipment for your marginally successful Powerlifting, Strongman or Weightlifting program when your coaching staff can barely get your members in and out of regular CrossFit class on time.
It sucks to see a gym owner who is honestly working very hard on these various areas and to be the one to tell him that the effort could be best spent elsewhere.
Because it’s not their work ethic work that I’m criticizing — It’s what they are working hard on that needs to be re-evaluated.
If you feel you fall into this category, please take a minute and write down the top 1–3 areas of your service that need improvement and go to work on those. Don’t waste time on these auxiliary projects until you’ve got the basics ironed out. If you’re not sure, hit me up and I’d be glad to help you sort through it.
Then there’s the other side of this coin, where time is being allocated to the right efforts, but it’s not managed in an optimal way. That’s where I want to make some recommendations and hopefully help you maximize the hours you are putting into your business:
1. Utilize a Calendar App
You have your phone within an arm’s length of you every hour of the day. Do some research and pick a calendar app that has the interface and features you desire (iCal, Google Calendar, Sunrise, Fantastical, etc). Make sure your staff also utilize the same app so that you can sync class schedules, personal training appointments, meetings, and other tasks. I would even suggest looking into your current back-office software, as they may have this feature available already.
You measure performance in the gym by the clock….so why not your business performance???
2. Schedule Everything
You need to utilize every hour of your working day, which means you need to put anything and everything you plan on doing that day into your calendar. Every workout, meeting, class, mediation time, personal errands, lunch, etc. When you plug all the events of your day into the calendar, it will surprise you (hopefully) how busy and productive you actually are. It will also allow you to self-audit your time and see where it’s being wasted. Now take a look at the gaps in between your scheduled events — these are crucial.
The rule of thumb is to always give yourself a little buffer between events in the instance that a meeting runs late or you encounter a traffic jam. Being punctual is being professional.
3. Have a BackUp Plan
There will be instances in which a meeting gets canceled or a client reschedules a personal training appointment. Do not let this precious time go to waste. Have a backup plan of work that can be accomplished during that time slot. Write it down in the sidebar or notes section of your calendar so that you can get started the moment you realize you’ve been given an extra hour to get shit done. Remember, there is ALWAYS something that you can be working on in your business. ALWAYS.
The biggest takeaway from this exercise is this — YOUR TIME IS VALUABLE. Treat it as such. Next time a member wants to just shoot the shit about who is gonna win the Games, next time you think of watching that 10 min WTF Gym Talk video — think about how much shit you have to do and that there’s only 24 of them in a day….don’t’ waste an hour!