Most business owners dream of having more Freedom of Time when they strike out on their own…
But for many, free time is quickly relegated to the “nice to have” or “someday” list.
As the day to day responsibilities of growing a business begin mount, free time gets pushed further down the list.
This is particularly true when you wear both the sales hat and the value delivery hat – as most consultants do.
You know (intellectually) that it is important to take time off to rest and rejuvenate. To reduce stress. To enjoy the non-work roles in your life. In fact, you can actually do this simply even by just utilizing a lift chair to release your stress.
But, you can feel the financial stress and extra hours of work that will come if you were to dare to take time off.
“I’ll be able to take off next time” you tell yourself. But next time never comes.
Unless you take steps to make it happen.
The Unexpected Benefit of Taking Free Time
The ability to take time off stress free isn’t only important for your physical and mental well being.
It’s also an indicator of the health of your business.
It takes discipline and work to keep your free time metric moving “up and to the right” on your tracking graph.
The same systems and disciplines needed to scale your business.
To make sure you are building a business and not just giving yourself another job.
And the more you work at taking time off on a consistent basis, the better your systems(and business) must become.
You’ll build systems to:
- Help you focus on spending more time doing your best work (another key metric).
- Attract new prospects to talk to – including referrals. Even when you are busy doing other things.
- Stay in touch with people who were not ready to buy when you met them, but will be buyers in the future.
- Deliver a world class experience to all of your clients
You’ll build discipline to:
- Eliminate activities that don’t contribute to your goals.
- Automate or delegate activities that are not your “best work”. Things that need doing, but not by you.
Without these systems and disciplines, you never really take time off.
You fear everything will come to a halt (or fall apart) if you’re not there. So you never leave.
You don’t get rest because you are constantly checking email.
You don’t relax, because you are worrying about how you are going to “catch up” once you get back.
It doesn’t have to be this way. You can “fix it”.
Free time doesn’t just happen. You have to work on it. You have to give it focus.
That’s why it’s included as a key metric in our Simplify and Grow workbook (drop me a line if you need a copy).
So you can set a goal and track your progress. Work on incremental improvements.
No one starts by taking 2 months off…
You start where you are.
Maybe you stop working weekends.
Or twice a month you leave early on Friday.
Start somewhere and keep moving up and to the right.
