I just went through one of the most painful things you can ever go through, and I encourage you to do the same if you want to grow or succeed. I’ve done different versions of this over the last few years, and I attribute most of my success to my ability to be honest with myself about where I spend my time.
For 14 days straight, I’ve been going through a time study. I logged everything I did in 15 minute blocks every day. I bucketed all of the things I did into different categories of personal, business, and non-productive. Things like media, self-care, spending time with family, etc. - it was really eye-opening.
I’ve always been pretty honest about where I’ve failed in business and in my personal life- you’ll know that if you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, but if there’s one thing I think has been a success for me, it’s been staying on top of where I spend my time.
Each of us are given the same 168 hours in a week - and I’d encourage you to audit yourself and see where you actually spend those hours you’re given. It’s really rewarding, although sometimes painful. We aim to help people transform their relationship between time and money, so of course it’s really important to keep tabs on where you spend your time.
You’ve heard me talk a lot about time, money, and stress - your ability to have freedom with your time and money while experiencing less stress is the goal, right?. When you really break down your calendar, and every 90 days you’re willing to be brutally honest with where you spend your time, and in your business if you find that you’re doing administrative tasks, and things you can hire out to someone else for less money than you want to be making, all of these things you need to just be honest with yourself in order to succeed.
I commit to doing this once a quarter, but I haven’t met a lot of other people who can hold themselves to this. There are 2 scales that I evaluate things against - passion, and pay.
High passion, high pay
High passion, low pay
Low passion, high pay
Low passion, low pay
The take-away here is to be honest with yourself about where you’re spending your time. If you’re not, you have to consider whether you are actually wanting to achieve at a high level.
Start with an assessment and take an inventory of where you’re spending your time. There are times where I don’t want to do the thing that’s next in my calendar, but it takes discipline to recognize what it’s for and do it anyways.