“Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it and spend it rather than invest it.” – Jim Rohn
You would have no doubt read or heard countless quotes and maxims like the one above about time being our most valuable asset. So knowing this, it would be crazy not to measure and manage it right?
The week leading up to Easter weekend was Mastermind week and a priority topic for discussion and coaching on my table each day stemmed directly from this valuable asset – TIME. How to measure it, make decisions on how it’s allocated and how to leverage it.
In this post I want to share 3 questions that will help liberate any property entrepreneur by identifying what to delegate in order to gain back time that can be allocated to higher value activity.
Before diving into the delegation fast track questions, you first need to know exactly where your time is currently going. To do this you absolutely need to invest the time over the coming weeks to track and record how your time is spent across a typical week.
HOW TO MEASURE YOUR TIME
A simple way to do that is to create a spreadsheet with 5 columns with the headings from left to right as follows:
ACTIVITY | No. HOURS | HOURLY RATE | ENJOYMENT RATING (0-10) | DELETE/KEEP/OUTSOURCE?
It’s best to record two typical working weeks, so plan to do that around the holiday weeks. Each day you need to account for each hour – covering everything from self care, domestic chores, commuting, family activities and of course property and work tasks (and be sure to specify the different work/property tasks). You need to rate each entry with an hourly rate (ie how much money it earns you per hour or how much you would earn if being paid by the hour to do it ie to cook and clean) and by how much you enjoy it on a scale of 1-10.
So by the end of 2 weeks of tracking you can study the results and make some meaningful decisions relating to what you keep doing, stop doing or delegate
MAKING DECISIONS THAT WILL RAISE YOUR HOURLY RATE
Only when you have tracked your weeks and have the data in front of you can you make some meaningful decisions. I have done this a couple of times in the last 5 years and it’s amazing how much room for change it highlights.
My entire Q1 of this year has been focused on reviewing our businesses, processes and time allocation to identify what can be delegated and to who. A large component of this has been to actively study leadership from various masters in their field and, from that, gradually apply some new exercises and tactics to enhance the decisions around time allocation and delegation.
That’s what I wanted to share here. So, do the time tracking first, and once you have the results in front of you, refer to these 3 questions to help you diagnose what to delegate.
YOUR DELEGATION CHEAT SHEET: 3 DIAGNOSTIC QUESTIONS
If you’re in the early stages of your property journey and wondering where to begin with delegating, these questions will help you. If you’re a seasoned property business owner growing to new levels, answering these questions 2-4 times a year will help you identify what to move off your plate and onto someone else’s.
#1: What things are you doing again and again for no money?
- When you take a look at your time tracker, what are the things that you are doing several times a week or month but not getting paid for? That will highlight some immediate things to delegate.
#2: Where do you find yourself HIDING by working on low leverage stuff?
– you don’t know how to tackle a big proposal so you head to quickbooks to code up expenses. In other words, where do you go to feel ‘BUSY’ when you’re hiding from the tasks that require COURAGE? Those will be tasks to delegate.
#3: Where can you act as Quality Control rather than Production?
- We don’t need to think of delegating as handing stuff off to someone and never thinking about it again. Many entrepreneurs can multiply their earnings and growth by figuring out how to wear the Quality Control hat and oversee others’ produce while they do the fine tuning or final checks.
CONCLUSION
I shared a post last week titled, ‘Your Property Business Needs a Who in Q2’ which is all about the tremendous growth opportunities available to us when we understand how to enlist the help of others.
To really help step change the return on our most valuable asset, here’s your call to action
#1 – track your time in a simple spreadsheet for 2 weeks
#2 – make some meaningful decisions using the 3 delegation diagnostic questions to help
#3 – take the action to delegate and train in the areas identified (there’s probably a whole other post in that 😊)
Who’s committed enough to their growth to pledge in the community that you’ll do this? (HINT – Those that do publicly declare their pledge are considerably more likely to stay consistent with their words and therefore reap the benefits 😁)