1. Use the 80/20 rule
In business, this rule is the most fundamental of them all. 80% of your money comes from 20% of your clients. Find those 20% and make sure to make good business with them. Because you are high in the hierarchy, you don’t have much time to spare. For that matter, apply the 80/20 rule again. What is taking 80% of my time but only generate 20% of my revenue OR what takes 20% of my time and generate 80% of my revenue?
2. Delegate, and then delegate, and then delegate even more
Find every possible action that you could do and find someone else to do it for you. This will allow you to focus on higher goal and higher priorities. If you’re the CEO of your entreprise, do you think it is “normal” for you to answer to clients problems? Hell no! You should be focusing on your business direction, the next step to grow, etc.
3. Parkinson’s Law
Work expands to fill the time available.
Often noticed in offices, if you give job to your employee, but don’t give them deadlines, the task can take MUCH time. It expands as time is available. Don’t make time available to others or yourself.
When planning deadlines, make them short. People are fuel by last minute stress. When they do, they generally focus on what is the most important to be accomplished and they do a good job out of it.
4. Occam’s Razor
All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.
When in doubt in front of two solutions, this is the best advice to follow. Always look for what is simple, since simplicity often equals less time consuming.
5. DO
Just Do It, as Nike would say. Everyone is good to find goals and stuff they’d like to do, but almost no one is good at starting or doing it. Most will have ideas, but they won’t do it because they know that it’ll involve work in-between. Instead of being like the rest of the world, why not do the stuff that you talk about. Use a single step: “What is it that I need to do next?” The general idea behind this is to make progress slowly. In order to head toward the right direction, make sure you have a goal in mind. If possible, be descriptive as possible about the next step, and again, if possible, write a plan of what you’ll need to accomplish.
This is all good, but now, you must do the most important step, DO IT!
