Have you ever told someone how to do something and then looked in the mirror and realized you don’t practice what you preach? Well, that happened to me recently and I think that this message is worth sharing.
When I started this blog, about 5 years ago, it was simply meant to be a collection of free tools my clients could download. I chose a blog format so that I could share a few nuggets of the content that I repeatedly share with my clients so that they might have access to ideas for reference after meetings.
Fast forward to today and I have hundreds of posts that represent more than a thousand valuable pieces of wisdom that entrepreneurs can use to change the trajectory of their businesses. Unfortunately, as the database of content grew it became harder and harder for visitors to locate the appropriate nuggets of wisdom.
So, for the past several months, I have been working pretty hard on making some changes to the site in an attempt to make it more of a repository that is easily searchable and to develop ways to make the content more tailored to the visitor’s needs. That task meant revisiting well over 800 posts and trying to categorize and tag them to make them more searchable. All the while I felt the need to continue producing three new posts each week. The effort necessary to improve the site and to keep writing new posts led to the continued mounting of time pressure.
My first reaction was to engage more freelancers who could help me take on some of the tasks I often performed myself. While this helped a little it also added to my overall expenses incurred in an effort to continue delivering free content since the freelancers came at a cost.
I was recently talking to a client about the three personas that are required to run a successful business. This concluded with me telling them that they had to spend less time being the technician and spend more time working on the business rather than in the business.
That night I didn’t sleep very well because I was noodling over all the tasks that still needed to get done. This was also magnified by my need to continue documenting all these new lessons I always feel I needed to share. Then it hit me. I needed to spend more time working ON the business and less time working IN the business. This is the message I shared with clients and that I had let get away from me.
When I write a new post, I am was working in the business. When I look for ways to reach more people or ways to make the site more user-friendly I am working on the business. I, therefore decided it was time to take my own advice.
So, I made the decision to cut back the number of new posts I write each week by replacing one of the posts with either a recycled and updated post from several years ago, a video, or a guest post. This will afford me more time to spent working on the business rather than in the business.
All business will be best served by taking a step back from time to time and determining what is important like I discussed in “What Is the Value of Quiet Time?” But what’s even more important is to not spend so much time in the trees, working in the business that you forget you’re in the forest.
Are you spending more time working in your business or on it?
