Not sure what you can delegate? Don’t know if you can afford it? Try writing down a list of all the regular tasks you do in a week, and estimate the amount of time spent on each activity. Now, pretend you’re paying someone a wage relative to each task, and put a dollar value beside each item, based on the guestimated hours spent. For example, bookkeeping might be worth $35 per hour. If you’ve spent 2 hours this week doing the books you’d put $70 beside that one. If, on the other hand, you’ve done data entry, that may be worth $15 per hour. You’ve taken 30 minutes, so $7.50 goes in the column.
Now, ask yourself, ‘What is my hourly rate when I’m engaged in income-generating work? If I were able to free up some of these other tasks, would I be able to do more of my work, and if so, what income could I generate?’
If it’s higher than the value of the miscellany of tasks you’ve spent your days ploughing through, you’re doing the wrong work and underpaying yourself. Find a part-timer or contractor until you can afford to pay more wages, and keep your focus on your work.
Every business goes through this soul-searching. The need almost always comes before we have the money to pay for help, but if we don’t take that step we’ll never have the money to pay anyone, including ourselves!
Yes, the need always comes before the money to pay for it.
So prioritising comes first.
To prioritise we need to see the truth about where we’re at relative to where we need to be.
To see the truth we need to slow down.
Doing less to achieve more …
Take a look at this story.
Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.
4 minutes later:
the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.
6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.
45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.
1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.
This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made…. How many other things are we missing?