It is Not the Number of Hours You Work
Now you may be saying to me, 'I am already working eighteen-hour days! How much harder can I possibly work?' Or if you are working for somebody else you may be thinking, 'This does not apply to me. As an employee, my hours of employment are fixed from 9am to 6pm. I do not get paid more for working longer hours.'
When I talk about increasing the time you spend creating value, I do not necessarily mean that you must work longer hours. Rather, you must spend more of your time only on activities that create the greatest value that generate the most profits for your company.
Whether you are an entrepreneur or an employee, you will have a list of things that you must do everyday as part of your responsibility. You will find that not all the things you do create the same amount of value.
There are some activities that create high value while some activities are low in value. In fact, if you find yourself doing low value items throughout the day, I have to say that you are not adding more value than you can to your business or company you work for.
I'm not saying that these things are not important or that you can ignore them. Because I know that there are some emails, telephone calls or planning that is also critical to adding value.
What I'm saying is that instead of you spending most of your time doing all these low value activities, what you should do is to outsource these low value items to someone else. Why else do you think a CEO has a personal assistant?
So that he can free up his time he otherwise would have spent checking his emails and answering phone calls and instead use the time he has everyday to do the things that will lead the company to higher growth and profit. That is where he adds the most value.
In fact, I have discovered that most average income earners spend only about 20% of their workday doing truly high value added activities while they spend most of their time, about 80%, on low value activities like checking email, attending unproductive meetings, chit chatting, complaining, waiting, finding lost items, stuff that does not generate profits or help clients meet their goals.
High-income earners are the opposite. They tend to spend 80% of their time on high value added activities like business development, closing sales, innovating new revenue streams, market strategizing, following up with prospects, strategizing on how to improve productivity, managing projects, getting feedback from clients, stuff that leads to high customer satisfaction and higher profits!
When I talk about increasing the time you spend creating value, I do not necessarily mean that you must work longer hours. Rather, you must spend more of your time only on activities that create the greatest value that generate the most profits for your company.
Whether you are an entrepreneur or an employee, you will have a list of things that you must do everyday as part of your responsibility. You will find that not all the things you do create the same amount of value.
There are some activities that create high value while some activities are low in value. In fact, if you find yourself doing low value items throughout the day, I have to say that you are not adding more value than you can to your business or company you work for.
I'm not saying that these things are not important or that you can ignore them. Because I know that there are some emails, telephone calls or planning that is also critical to adding value.
What I'm saying is that instead of you spending most of your time doing all these low value activities, what you should do is to outsource these low value items to someone else. Why else do you think a CEO has a personal assistant?
So that he can free up his time he otherwise would have spent checking his emails and answering phone calls and instead use the time he has everyday to do the things that will lead the company to higher growth and profit. That is where he adds the most value.
In fact, I have discovered that most average income earners spend only about 20% of their workday doing truly high value added activities while they spend most of their time, about 80%, on low value activities like checking email, attending unproductive meetings, chit chatting, complaining, waiting, finding lost items, stuff that does not generate profits or help clients meet their goals.
High-income earners are the opposite. They tend to spend 80% of their time on high value added activities like business development, closing sales, innovating new revenue streams, market strategizing, following up with prospects, strategizing on how to improve productivity, managing projects, getting feedback from clients, stuff that leads to high customer satisfaction and higher profits!