How much time do you have?

How much time do you have?

Sometimes I tell audiences, “I’m so lucky, I get 36 hours in the day.” They laugh, but what I’m really saying is, “I get a lot done, I think you can too.”People tell me they don’t have enough time. In fact, time is one of the number one excuses of why people don’t do things. We all have the same amount of time and if we value something enough we will make time for it, even if it means getting up at 4:00am so we can have quiet time or time to exercise. Time is something we all have, but we don’t know how much we have in this lifetime. Some of us die in our 40’s, 60’s, 80’s, even into our 100’s. What we do know is we have the same amount of time in every day. So the question is, how will you use that time? It takes time to grow a business. In my first year of business I was -$40,000. Now, the next year I broke even and I felt like I was winning because to go from -$40,000 to a positive balance felt pretty good. I’ll tell you that every year since I’ve doubled that and I’m doing quite well today. I don’t tell you this to gloat. I tell you this to say give yourself some time. Don’t get up one day and think you’re going to make $1 million or $100,000 or $50,000 or $500,000 overnight. Know that it takes time to grow and sustain a successful business. In the beginning, I had to invest in growing a business, creating a business, and building a business. All of that took time and money. I almost think that time is more valuable than money. You see, when someone asks me to come spend time with them or to come look at something that they want to sell me, I have to first ask myself not just about the money, but am I willing to spend an hour learning and listening.Make sure that whatever you offer is valuable enough that people will spend their time investing with you, listening and learning from you, and that you have the right lessons to teach for their benefit, not for yours. As a business owner I can decide how much time I want to spend on my business and how much I want to spend time relaxing or going to lunch or coffee. I used to go to coffee all the time, all day long. One coffee would turn into three hours and two coffees would turn into six hours, and I would get nothing done. I had to learn to limit that time and go less often. I had to learn to be on time. I also had to learn to honor my time and not just spend a day chatting.Owning your own business has lots of privileges. If you don’t use your time wisely, you won’t be successful. The more I dig in and actually work on my business when I’m not on the road traveling and speaking, the more successful my business is. Time is something you must manage and use wisely. Be sure to take care of yourself. If you like to get up early to do something for yourself—quiet time or exercise—prepare for it that day. Set your working hours. For me, it’s 8:00am-4:00pm, Monday through Friday. Even without a boss, I will work those hours at minimum and occasionally on the weekends and evenings. Maybe in the beginning you’re working a lot of hours, maybe 60 to 100 hours a week. Are you willing to put in that kind of time? Working for yourself has advantages and disadvantages. One very important piece of being successful is managing your time and being dedicated, focused, and disciplined to make the phone calls, the outreach, and the follow up that you need to do to sustain a successful business.

How to you schedule your time? Where do you spend your time? Where to you waste time? If you are self employed do you schedule and track your time? How will you spend what time you have left?