With the entrepreneurial lifestyle being as hectic as it is for most small business owners, anything we can do to leverage our time better, get more done and ultimately boost productivity is a good thing.
One of the questions I get asked most often is how I can be so darn productive? People see me running several different businesses that employee hundreds of people, producing content for this blog and my new podcast, attending to numerous speaking gigs, as well as other projects that I work on regularly and they want to know how I do it!
The fact is that I wasn’t always this productive and streamlined. There was a time when I was working 14-hour days, chasing my tail to earn a living and spending very little time with my family. Nowadays it’s a different ball game – thank God. And here’s the thing – I’m still not the best manager of people out there – what I have become very good at, however, is the ability to delegate.
And I delegate like MAD!
The ‘3 Lists to Freedom’ Exercise
One of the easiest ways to get started with delegating work and become super productive, is to work with a virtual assistant.
I just got back from New Media Expo where I spoke in front of jam-packed crowd on the subject of working with VA’s to help grow the content marketing side of small businesses – something that can take up to 96-hours a month (publishing 3-times a week). Once they realized that they could save all this time each month by delegating the bulk of the work to VA’s, it blew their minds!!!
I want you to feel the same way. So, in the video below there’s a quick exercise you NEED TO DO, in order to get going with the outsourcing mindset that every entrepreneur needs to have, in order to bring a little calm to the chaos!
Superhero Syndrome
We’re all the same, us entrepreneurs. We suffer from what I call ‘Superhero Syndrome’, believing that there is no kryptonite to our hard working, ‘saving the business world’ ways. Believe me – we couldn’t be any further from the truth. I go into a lot of detail on this problem, and the solutions to battle it in my bestselling book, Virtual Freedom.
There is something that can hurt us. Stop us in our tracks. Fundamentally put the proverbial spanner in our entrepreneurial works.
It’s called burnout.
One of the things we can do to avoid burning out is to become more effective delegators. At first it’s hard letting go (we’re also micro-managers!), but trust me folks, once you start letting go of the steering wheel a little, you’ll want to hire a full-time driver sooner or later!
It Aint Rocket Science!
Once you create your ‘3 Lists to Freedom’ you’ll have a blueprint, a roadmap if you will, that you can use to start outsourcing all the simple tasks that are bogging down your workload and stunting your productivity every day.
It really isn’t rocket science, and ends up being way easier to get started than most people originally think it will.
You get to focus on working ON your business, whilst someone else (or a team of someone else’s!) takes care of the tasks that trap you and have you shackled to your desk, working IN your business.
When you’re done with the exercise, I’d like you to list down ONE thing from each of the three lists in the comment section below. That way you’re holding yourself publicly accountable to start delegating effectively.
You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your business. Do the exercise NOW, and I look forward to hearing from you on Twitter and Facebook!
