It was a conversation with one of our employees yesterday (trust me, this is relevant!), which sparked me to write this article.
This employee is currently studying at uni and it can take her as long as 1.5 hours to get from work to class of an afternoon. However, in typical Sydney traffic style, a good run can get her there up to an hour early.
Instead of sitting on her phone scrolling Facebook like most, she’ll take study notes with her to read – just in case. In doing so, she’s calculated that she is often…
- 3 hours ahead in study each week, which equates to
- 36 hours ahead over a semester.
The best bit is, these efforts are so small and incremental, the hours add up without her even realising.
So, what does this mean for you as a trade business owner?
This story shows that small incremental efforts have a huge long-term impact on progress and efficiency.
It’s all about maximising the seconds in your day, everyday.
You can do this in two ways:
- Through incidental extra time (like in the situation above)
- Through dedicated time.
Incidental extra time
The spare time in your day that incidentally becomes available is the time that comes about whilst you are doing mindless activities or which eventuates when your day pans out in a way which gives you a “spare” moment (which is probably that rare moment when you aren’t with a customer or employee).
The key to maximising these hours is to be prepared. Just like our employee comes prepared with her study notes, you need to prepare yourself with the tools and resources to make use of those times.
Perhaps you may choose to: listen to podcasts while you are driving to a job or working at a job site.
Or
Utiliee those 5 to 10 minutes that you arrive early at your next job constructively on select apps on your mobile or tablet device.
Maybe that’s…
- Reconciling your accounts on your cloud accounting app, or
- Reading up on some of our trade business tips on the Lifestyle Tradie App (available on App Store HERE and on Google Play HERE).
Dedicated time
Now you’ve seen the power in taking advantage of small opportunities throughout your day, you may even decide to allocate small periods each day for business activities. These times are particularly good for business growth activities, such as marketing and business planning activities, which you usually wouldn’t find the time for in your day-to-day routine.
In an ideal world (and this may not be best for you right now), you’d want to dedicate 96 days a year to business growth activities.
96 days – public holidays
=
1x Marketing day per week
1x Administrative / financial day per week
However, putting aside whole days might not fit your current business needs.
But, would you consider putting aside 1 hour each day? Say between 7am-8am you solely focus on your marketing.
This might seem insignificant, yet over a week this 1 hour becomes 5 hours and over the year, this 5 hours becomes 260 hours! This is some serious food for though.
What’s next?
- Join our Kick-Ass Tradies Facebook Group, for access to trade business specific conversations, tips and resources, plus a like-minded community of tradies.
- Book a 15-minute Game Plan Call with Andy, owner of Dr. DRiP plumbing and co-founder of Lifestyle Tradie, to clarify your priorities and get clear action steps.
