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Author: Andrew Horder, Principal Consultant, Business Strategy Solutions Ltd

08/07/2008

Attached: How Much Time Are You Wasting.pdf

The time I'm talking about is the time when you're working hard, but you're working on the wrong things - on sub-optimal opportunities.

OK, what do I mean by sub-optimal?

Experience has shown me that the business owners that really succeed do three things well: they focus, they are passionate about what they do, and they understand viability. The reasons Focus is important, I covered in two recent blogs, “So why is Focus important to success?”

(http://tinyurl.com/horder-art1) - and “Focus, potential and performance” (http://tinyurl.com/horder-art2); Passion and Viability I will cover in later articles. What I mean by sub-optimal, are those opportunities" where you aren't really fired up by them, and/or they aren't really viable.

The trouble with these sub-optimal activities is that they don't just affect you by wasting your time. They also affect your efficiency and effectiveness in doing the things you should be focussing on, because a part of your attention is always on them, even if only slightly. And each time you shift focus from a good opportunity to one of your sub-optimal ones, it take you a while to get back into the swing of it. In extreme circumstances, they can affect your whole attitude to your business - if you're wasting time on things you're not really enjoying, or that are harder than they should be to make a success of, it's easy to get dispirited and disheartened.

I've been reading a lot of biographical material lately - people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, Carlos Slim Helu ("Who’s he?" I hear you ask; the second richest man on the planet, according to Forbes), Branson, Trump. And what shines through in all of it is focus and passion - they do what they do because they love doing it, and they focus on what they're good at. They don't get distracted by things they don't enjoy - many of them say outright, something like, if it isn't fun, don't do it.

If this has already made you think about how you're spending your "work" time, that's good. If you still need a bit more motivation to stop wasting time on your "sub-optimals", click here http://www.opportunity-matrix.com/OC_signup to try out an opportunity cost calculator to work out how much money that wasted time could be costing you!

About Andrew Horder:

After a successful career as a Key Account Manager and Key Account Strategist in businesses ranging from owner-managed SME’s to multinational corporates, Andrew established Business Strategy Solutions Ltd (www.businessstrategysolutions.com), a consultancy specialising in strategic analysis. In 2007 he developed Opportunity Matrix™ (www.opportunity-matrix.com), a programme to help business professionals to make sure they’re focussing on the best things to get their business where they want it to go.

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