Busy Is Not The Same As Productive

When I first sit down with a new client, I get them to do a time audit. Most of them resist it.

In their hearts, they already know what it's going to show. They are spending too many hours on $10 tasks. They are busy, flat out, stuck on the hamster wheel of doing it, doing it, doing it. And what they need to do instead is build systems, delegate and eliminate the unnecessary.

And once you see it, you can't unsee it. That's the moment the motivation actually shows up. They look at the audit and it doesn't make sense anymore, to carry on in the same way. They know they need to stop and make a change.

Here's the catch though. Stopping takes more effort right now than continuing does. It's easier to keep doing the $10 tasks than it is to find someone to hand it on to. It's easier to carry on then build a system.

So most business owners don't stop. They keep telling themselves they're too busy to fix it. And this is the exact thinking that keeps them and their business stuck.

If you want to know whether you're actually progressing or just keeping busy, do the audit. Track where your hours went last week, and be honest about which of those hours were spent on real "CEO tasks."