Finding/making discretionary time

[Shineapple]

Hi all,

I'm a long time GTD student/practitioner who has this year moved from working for someone else (office job) to working for myself (horse riding instructor). I am very much enjoying being able to both do work I am passionate about, and manage my own schedule, direction etc.

What i am finding however, and what I am hoping you may be able to help me with, is that (probably typical for a sole-trader/owner-operator) I no longer feel as though I have much discretionary time available. My days are filled with travel to and from lesson appointments, doing the lessons, and then the routine daily personal and work admin that is required to keep myself and the business afloat.

I do try and schedule an hour first thing each morning of discretionary time to pick out my priority next actions, but it just doesn't seem to be enough time to really make much progress, and my next actions are increasingly putting out fires and dealing with urgent important tasks. I sometimes have a little time in the evenings, but I find myself completely mentally and physically drained by that point, and even the most mundane tasks seem to be beyond me then. As this goes on I feel like I am having less opportunity to look over things from a higher perspective, and consequently, it is also getting harder to make the priority decision.

Even just writing this post out it does occur to me that there is a limit to how much I can take on and that possibly I need to decrease my workload, change my business model, and/or outsource some of my routine admin etc. However, at this early stage in the business, I think it will be some time before I have the ability to do so.

Does anyone here have ideas for how I may be able to better 'get things done' during this stage?

 

[Gardener]

The answer may turn out to be very specific to you. It also may have a short-term answer, while you're trying to get the business started, and a longer-term answer, where you can loosen up a little.

Are there things that you've always done for yourself but could theoretically be hired out or just eliminated? They could be things from your personal life, not just your business.

For example, let's imagine that every week you spend six hours on paperwork, and hiring someone to handle that would be pretty expensive. Imagine that every week you also spend an hour mowing the lawn, four hours cooking and cleaning up after cooking, an hour getting your car washed, and half an hour ironing a shirt for church. Mowers and prepared food and paper plates might be reasonably affordable, and you might decide that in the short term you can tolerate a dusty car that's washed once a month and you can wear polo shirts to church.

In that scenario, you've won sixish hours of time (you still have to wash the car occasionally and deal with the food reheating and trash) for probably substantially less expense than hiring clerical help. You don't want to eat canned stew off paper plates for the rest of your life, but for the short-term push, it might be worthwhile.

Or you may discover that you do have to reduce your business commitments. The way to maximize the benefit while minimizing the cost is also probably very specific to you. For example, maybe you block off one full business day every week or two weeks, taking no lessons on that day, because a full focused day is going to get a lot more done than snatched half-hours here and there.

It occurs to me that the book The Lean Farm might be relevant. It's a discussion of "lean", the business concept, in the context of a farm rather than a factory or a programming shop. It discusses a lot of scenarios of eliminating wasted time and effort. A farm is obviously not the same as a riding instructor business, but it's a lot closer than a factory.

 

[Shineapple]

Are there things that you've always done for yourself but could theoretically be hired out or just eliminated? They could be things from your personal life, not just your business.

I do think that delegating a lot more of the things that could be delegated is the answer for me, and yes, it's probably mostly personal 'work' that needs to go. I have been thinking about this for a while. I think it's time to do a review!

Incidentally, after I posted the other day I also ended up culling a lot of my current projects to someday/maybe. Being honest about how much I can be doing at any one time. That has allowed me to be a little more mentally available to the projects and corresponding next actions that have stayed on my lists.

Thanks for the book suggestions also, concepts look good.

 

[Oogiem]

It occurs to me that the book The Lean Farm might be relevant. It's a discussion of "lean", the business concept, in the context of a farm rather than a factory or a programming shop. It discusses a lot of scenarios of eliminating wasted time and effort. A farm is obviously not the same as a riding instructor business, but it's a lot closer than a factory.

Thanks for posting that, it looks interesting for me as well.