Recently, I read a quote that really hit a nerve. I’m paraphrasing here:
“As an entrepreneur, your 2 most important priorities are who you hire and what you choose to work on.”
As entrepreneurs, stuff is obviously flying around all the time. Sometimes you’ll put out a fire only to see two more pop up.
Those of us that can be disorganized (like me) struggle with prioritization when so so much stuff is going on.
It becomes tough to prioritize when countless things require your attention.
Narrowing it down to just TWO things makes life easier.
1. What you choose to work on
It’s easy to be sucked into the minutiae of the day. The better you get, the more attention you’ll attract. The more attention you attract, the more people want your personal time.
That’s why you have to be relentless with your time.
a.k.a. you should only be working on the tasks that only you can do.
To make it simple, here’s Dwight Eisenhower’s strategic time management matrix:
I have this saved as a shortcut in my Evernote so whenever I feel like I’m spinning my wheels working on tasks that can be delegated, I’ll take a look and put myself back on track instantly.
Best-selling author Michael Hyatt takes a proactive approach to planning out his week.
Obviously, the unexpected happens and each week isn’t going to go according to plan, but it sets up a framework to live by.
Here’s how he blocks out his time:
Here’s how he breaks it down:
In the spreadsheet embedded above, the themes are listed on the very top row:
- Monday is devoted to my team, one-on-one meetings and a staff meeting at lunch.
- Tuesday and Wednesday are devoted to travel and extended meetings, like our Monthly Business Review meetings.
- Thursday is an ad hoc day. This is where I try to push external requests for meetings.
- Friday is spent on planning and long-term thinking
- Saturday is for personal chores and activities.
- Sunday is for church, rest, and planning the next week.
My focus areas are listed in the left-most column:
- The early morning hours are devoted to self: reading, praying, and working out.
- The middle of the day is devoted to work. Note that I arrive at the office by 8:30 and leave promptly at 6:00 p.m. It is amazing what you can get done in the time allotted when you create “hard boundaries” around your work. Otherwise, Parkinson’s Law becomes operative: “Work expands to the time allotted for it.”
- The end of the day is reserved for my family and writing. Currently, I don’t have any children living at home. However, Gail I eat dinner together almost every night, taking time to connect and catch up. I then enjoy writing for the last ninety minutes of the day.
Activities that contribute to my goals and priorities are shaded green. Those are not related to my goals are shaded red. Those that could be either, are white. Those that are grey are simply not scheduled. This represents “margin.” This scheme is admittedly subjective, but it is helpful to me to they and make sure I am working on what matters most.
To use this tool, I suggest that you map out your own Ideal Week. You can either download my Excel spreadsheet or start from scratch.
Below is an excerpt of an interview I did with VideoFruit Bryan Harris CEO on how he chooses what to work on:
Noah Kagan from SumoMe.com does something similar for his company where he has a dashboard focused on ONE key metric: the number of visits to his application:
Key Takeaways: Be selfish with your time and focus on only the things that are important to YOU. You can start by planning out your week and making time blocks to manage your time. When you’re having trouble deciding what to work on, pull out Eisenhower’s 2x2 framework.
2. Who you hire
I’m paraphrasing again here: Bill Gates said that Microsoft was built off of 20 people. Not just one person.
Even if you’re a working machine, you still need to get help if you want to grow.
Most people are so head down on sales/marketing/product (which are important!) that they sometimes tend to delegate/offload hiring to someone else too early.
Fundamentally, that makes no sense.
Sports teams spend massive resources to look for the best possible talent. Think of your business as a sports team.
Hiring isn’t something you can just half-ass.
As a person that has lost close to a million dollars on one bad hire, I would know.
Bad hires are a negative multiplier on your business not just from a revenue standpoint, but a cultural standpoint.
Zappos CEO estimates his own bad hires have cost his company “well over $100 million.”
The solution? Fix your hiring processes.
The first thing you can do is build a hiring funnel.
Here’s what ours looks like:
In a nutshell, a hiring funnel will organize your entire hiring process and tell you which areas you need to be optimizing. Ideally, you start optimizing the top of the funnel (where you are looking for candidates).
At the bottom of the funnel, you’re doing your final due diligence and ultimately trying to ‘close’ the candidate.
Most businesses fail to systemize their hiring process to this extent, which leaves holes that can be costly. Once you begin to look at your process from a high level, you’ll be able to plug the holes and figure out the best possible way to bring in top-tier talent.
For more on setting up a hiring process, I put together a free online training that you can access right here for a limited time.
Let me know what you think.
Key Takeaway: Start approaching your hiring with a strategic view and figure out what the traits of an A-player for your business looks like. Every business is different so take the time as a founder to set up this foundation. You certainly don’t want to offload your vision to someone else (especially in the beginning). Building a hiring process like the one depicted above will make your recruiting life much easier.
image source: HubSpot sidekick
