Lack of time?

[Andy Black]

I’m in a group of folks trying to build subscription businesses related to renting out websites.

Someone asked what their biggest problem was and it had 54 comments.

I went through them all and was shocked to read most people said their biggest problem was lack of time.

Here was my reply:

...

I’m genuinely surprised so many people said “time”.

Do you have paying clients? Can you get them to pay for the builds?

I have a full-time freelance developer. I get clients to pay me to pay him to build their landing pages. I’m effectively getting clients to pay for my developer to build our processes, technology, and IP.

I don’t have a self-serve platform yet. I don’t even sell our landing pages from a landing page.

Are you sure you need all the things you think you need?

.

There’s a phrase I like that has a lot of truth in it: “Sales solve everything.”

Can you sell more websites or landing pages and use that revenue to pay others to do some of that stuff you shouldn’t be doing, or don’t have time for?

...

It’s often less about the resources you have and more about being resourceful.

 

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[Laughingman21]

I find most people have plenty of time. What they really lack is priorities .

 

[Bekit]

I went through them all and was shocked to read most people said their biggest problem was lack of time...
...I’m genuinely surprised so many people said “time”...
...Are you sure you need all the things you think you need?...

Andy, I'd love to hear you (and other forum members) elaborate on this further.

The impossibility of expanding time seems to me to be one of the biggest challenges that I face.

At the same time, I have an inkling that it's more about mindset than about a literal impossibility.

So here's where I'm coming from, and I would love for someone to point out the flaws in my thinking.

I'm working full time, 40-60 hours a week. I want to divorce my time from my money. But in order to get there, I need to take on a side hustle. And eventually, I want my side hustle to be good enough and reliable enough to make it my main hustle.

So I expand my working hours. Get less sleep. Do whatever it takes. I'm hungry.

And this is the scenario that I see before me as the inevitable path towards making this work...

Let's say that I get client work for 10 hours a week, but it only brings in 25% of what I need to quit the main gig.

Then I raise my rates and I bring on 10 more hours a week, and now I'm bringing in a total of 60% of what I need to quit the main gig.

So I raise my rates again and I bring on 10 more hours a week, and I'm close to where I need to be to quit the full-time job, but not quite. I'm also barely managing to hold it together because I don't function well on lack of sleep.

Fear starts taking center stage. "You're slipping. Your performance is suffering. People are unhappy with your work, and you can't blame them... because after all, you're not doing your best work."

But the counter argument starts, "You don't have a choice. Do or die. Make it happen. You've got to do this. Not sure how it'll work, but I'm going to go for it anyway."

And all of this is directly related to lack of time. Lack of energy. Finite amounts of capacity.

It’s often less about the resources you have and more about being resourceful.

Maybe I'm not thinking creatively enough about this. But all of the ways I can think of to bring in some immediate Monthly Recurring Revenue in the short term are still direct tradeoffs between time and money. They're not fastlane. They're "me-working-extra-hours-but-for-clients-who-keep-me-on-retainer" (and therefore I'm still not leveraging my time any more effectively).

At this point, I'm willing to put in time. Time is all I have. I don't have money yet to pay people so that I can delegate tasks to them so that I can expand my time. If grinding out the time in the short term is the cost I have to pay, I'll pay it. And I'm hoping that down the road I'll be established enough to have additional ways at my disposal to leverage my time more effectively (through creating a scalable business model).

But maybe I'm not seeing something that's available to me NOW that is scalable. Maybe I'm not thinking about this with the right kind of mindset of resourcefulness and creativity that someone else would approach this puzzle with.

What would your thought process look like in tackling something like this? What are some of the questions that you'd ask yourself to identify opportunities? What are the entrepreneurial thinking patterns and mindset traits that people have in common when they're "good at having enough time"?

I have a LOT to learn in this area... any insight would be devoured hungrily!

 

[WJK]

I still trying to decide what I wanna be when I grow up. Yes, my real estate investments are successful but time-consuming and frustrating. Yes, my time is in very short supply.

I started a business blog this last spring. I learned WordPress to build it. I'm still floundering around trying to find my audience. I'm not sure it's worth my time to continue. Yes, I need landing pages, and I need to find a better direction -- if I continue. Is that the business you are in, Andy?

 

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[garyfritz]

We all have the same amount of time (per day, per week, etc), by definition.

The difference is in how we USE the time we have.

Some people invest lots of time into family, church, volunteering, etc.
Some people burn (waste, destroy, throw away) lots of time binge-watching the latest Show, or reading the latest news, or watching sports, or playing the latest computer games, or whatever. And while we may think they are "wasting" that time, that may be the one thing that gives them joy.
Some people spend 40+ hrs/wk paying the bills and have no energy left over for anything else.

But some people, however they do it, make BETTER AND MORE EFFICIENT USE of the time they HAVE.

This is something I have yet to master. I am a champion at wasting time. I see people who accomplish 5x more than I do and I just shake my head in wonder, admiration, and jealousy. (My mother says she has always felt the same way, so it may be partly hereditary ADD challenges.)

The challenge is to determine how much time you have available -- after required sleep, eating, child care, etc -- and decide how efficiently you can use it. Not everybody can accomplish the same amount with the same amount of time. Improving your own efficiency is the challenge, just like a runner tries to improve his time.

Some of us just plod along the track slower than others...

 

[LiveEntrepreneur]

When people say "I don't have the time", more times than not it's complete bullshit. They are bullshitting themselves. What they are really saying is "I don't want to make the time". A lot of people don't want to make a sacrifies temporarily either. If they need to go to get a tax return done for example but they have work, they might say something like "but I have work I haven't got the time to do it". Complete bullshit, you can tell your boss you will come in later because of these reasons. I am sure he/she will approve.

 

[The Abundant Man]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwYX52BP2Sk



[Intro]

[Verse 1: David Gilmour & Richard Wright]
Ticking away
The moments that make up the dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around
On a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then, one day, you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

[Instrumental Solo]

[Verse 2: David Gilmour & Richard Wright]
And you run, and you run
To catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same
In a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I'd something more to say

["Breathe" reprise: David Gilmour]
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells

 

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[MythOfSisyphus]

There's no doubt that time is a valuable resource, but a "lack of time" is usually a lack of organisation and direction. It helps to have clear goals and clear steps to achieve them. Time becomes much more of a factor when you don't know what you're doing from day to day and you go blindly from one task to another.

This year I've probably averaged around 30 hours a week (far less than most slowlaners & sidewalkers, let alone your average entrepreneur) and have almost doubled my companies revenue per month. And yes, I have employees to help, but I managed the same kind of growth without them too.

 

[Andy Black]

Time Management is a Myth
(From one of the management development sessions given by a gentleman called Blaise Brosnan.)

We all have the same amount of time in a day. We can't speed it up or slow it down.

When you say you didn't have time to do something, you're really saying it wasn't important enough to do and you did something more important instead.

This is ok when I tell my wife I didn't have time to hang that shelf today. That will end better than if I said it wasn't important enough for me to do today. However, don't kid yourself and say you didn't have time to do something. Admit that it wasn't important enough and that you chose to do something else instead.

As a few of you've already mentioned, it's about prioritisation, not trying to manage time.



The Four D's

Blaise then told us of the Four D's that we should apply when a task lands on our desk:

1) Dump it

• Should we even do it? This is the most important step and probably the one we screw up the most. I'll talk more about that one in another post.

2) Delegate it

• So it needs to be done. Should YOU be doing it though? If not, delegate it to someone else.

3) Defer it.

• So it needs to be done, and it needs to be done by you. Does it need to be done immediately, or can it be deferred to another date? If it can be deferred to another date then add it into your calendar for that time and forget about it until then.

4) Do it

• Ah. So it needs to be done by you and can't be deferred. Get it done then.

(Also mentioned here.)

 

[Xeon]

The issue with time, I realized, is that the more you leverage your time and make the best use of it, the more you find that you need more time, because there's still a whole lot of stuff you need to do but you've already used up 17 / 24 hrs, and you need that remaining 7 hrs to sleep and eat etc.

 

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[BlackMagician]

Many people (friends/family/neighbors/business friends) in my life told me that they don't have time.
Some months back, I decided to survey my and their time. After analyzing everything for a whole 1 month, I found that i have at-least 5 hours/day of free time. Yes 5 hrs!

For those whom i analyse and pointed out, they have at least 3 hr/day of free time. 3 hr!

That's 3x7=21.

A lot can be done in 21 hours. And this is of the busiest person i know. Some of them can squeeze 50 hours per week(i can).

I understood that it's not that we don't have time. It's that we don't prioritize things needs to be prioritize.

I can use the time browsing FB/Insta/Snapchat to read/learn.
I can use the time watching Netflix/TV, playing games for earning more bucks, work on business. (I am Gamer)
I can use the time Gossiping on useless stuffs on table to help someone and improve my life(yes helping someone improve our life for better. it's something like Karma)
I can use the dead time while travelling in Train/Bus to have meeting/call with clients.

Heck. I can use the time sitting in toilet.

and all this can be done via KE (Kinetic Execution).

KE is not just for business/entrepreneurship. We can use the same model with little tweaks in our day to day life to make our life better and make others life better.

3 A's can be used. ACT whatever is important. Assess Our current situation/life. Adjust what needs to be to change.

Hear the echos of our heart to learn & change.

PS. I am very bad with word flows. Wanted to write in easy and explainable manner but sorry for my bad English and flows.

 

[FutureLearning]

When I was working for somebody else as an employee, I thought that I don't have time at all and now as I started my journey as an entrepreneur, I feel I have all the time in the world because I just started my entrepreneurial journey hence don't have a long list of clients.

One thing I realized recently that Time is the most important commodity in the world and it's not about the time but the value that we produce within the time we have. So now I try to make the most of hours I have for work in terms of value creation.

 

[Andy Black]

This could turn into a bit of a Blaise Brosnan thread. He’s an older gentleman and it’s such a pleasure to be at one of his workshops listening to him talk. Some of the best lines come from him when someone asks him a question.


Anyway... on the subject of “1) Dump it” ...

“The market doesn’t pay for activity.” (Blaise Brosnan)

“You can’t invoice for input.” (Blaise Brosnan)

Do you really need to:

• Read that book?
• Take that course?
• Create that portfolio website?
• Handwrite those Gary Halbert letters?
• Listen to that podcast?
• Read that email?
• Redo your logo?
• Watch those videos?
• Read all those Gold threads?
• Improve your public speaking?
• Learn web design?
• Learn graphic design?
• Get that Google certification?
• Go through that 18 hour Google Ads course?
• Build 5 websites before you get a paying client?
• Built that marketplace website?
• Create that 10 page business plan?
• Buy that domain?

Are you just consuming?

Are you being “busy”?

Can you invoice for it?

 

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[superb]

On the topic of learning: How many of us are reading books just to read books? We've been told that the most successful people are always reading. So we read and there is an endless supply of books promoted in forums and on podcasts. But are the books we a reading relevant to an immediate problem that we need to solve in our business?

 

[Andy Black]

On the topic of learning: How many of us are reading books just to read books? We've been told that the most successful people are always reading. So we read and there is an endless supply of books promoted in forums and on podcasts. But are the books we a reading relevant to an immediate problem that we need to solve in our business?

On that note:

• What if you already know enough?

 

[superb]

On that note:

• What if you already know enough?

Excellent post !

 

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[BlackMagician]

If what we already know can be utilized 100%, we don't even need to read another book.

 

[Hijena1]

Many people (friends/family/neighbors/business friends) in my life told me that they don't have time.
Some months back, I decided to survey my and their time. After analyzing everything for a whole 1 month, I found that i have at-least 5 hours/day of free time. Yes 5 hrs!

For those whom i analyse and pointed out, they have at least 3 hr/day of free time. 3 hr!

That's 3x7=21.

A lot can be done in 21 hours. And this is of the busiest person i know. Some of them can squeeze 50 hours per week(i can).

I understood that it's not that we don't have time. It's that we don't prioritize things needs to be prioritize.

I can use the time browsing FB/Insta/Snapchat to read/learn.
I can use the time watching Netflix/TV, playing games for earning more bucks, work on business. (I am Gamer)
I can use the time Gossiping on useless stuffs on table to help someone and improve my life(yes helping someone improve our life for better. it's something like Karma)
I can use the dead time while travelling in Train/Bus to have meeting/call with clients.

Heck. I can use the time sitting in toilet.

and all this can be done via KE (Kinetic Execution).

KE is not just for business/entrepreneurship. We can use the same model with little tweaks in our day to day life to make our life better and make others life better.

3 A's can be used. ACT whatever is important. Assess Our current situation/life. Adjust what needs to be to change.

Hear the echos of our heart to learn & change.

PS. I am very bad with word flows. Wanted to write in easy and explainable manner but sorry for my bad English and flows.

Thank you for the awesome picture, looks lovely!

 

[BlackMagician]

Image is of Unscripted Book of MJ.

 

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[daru]

On the topic of learning: How many of us are reading books just to read books? We've been told that the most successful people are always reading. So we read and there is an endless supply of books promoted in forums and on podcasts. But are the books we a reading relevant to an immediate problem that we need to solve in our business?

Nah. But reading books just to read books instead of watching TV, scroll Facebook feeds or playing computer games I believe pays great dividends over time. And it's a investment into ones business sooner or later indirectly.

But the difference is that reading those books that don't immediately solves your business problems is NOT something you do during focused business work hours.
I see it more like a background activity. Perhaps a bit like lifting weights, meditate and eat healthy that indirectly benefits your business.

 

[Hijena1]

Image is of Unscripted Book of MJ.

Yep, I just hapen to have black&white version only.

 

[The Abundant Man]

Remember both the beggar and billionaire have 24 hours in a day

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

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[ManlyMansNegator]

Using other peoples time is how you have more time.If you delegate tasks you have more time!

 

[Andy Black]

Using other peoples time is how you have more time.If you delegate tasks you have more time!

Exactly. If you dump it, delegate it, or defer it, then you have more time - to do the thing you should be doing.

 

[ManlyMansNegator]

Exactly. If you dump it, delegate it, or defer it, then you have more time - to do the thing you should be doing.

I have a few brothers, always love delegating them tasks as im older then them.Especially when they are lazily watching television, that said the downside in delegating is skill outsourcing, you reduce the amount of "skill points" you garner in that area.

Editing? -> outsource-> no skill points.

 

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[Andy Black]

I'm working full time, 40-60 hours a week. I want to divorce my time from my money. But in order to get there, I need to take on a side hustle. And eventually, I want my side hustle to be good enough and reliable enough to make it my main hustle.

So I expand my working hours. Get less sleep. Do whatever it takes. I'm hungry.

Yes, I think this is normal. I like this phrase: "You can't break tackles at marathon pace"

Let's say that I get client work for 10 hours a week, but it only brings in 25% of what I need to quit the main gig.
Then I raise my rates and I bring on 10 more hours a week, and now I'm bringing in a total of 60% of what I need to quit the main gig.
So I raise my rates again and I bring on 10 more hours a week, and I'm close to where I need to be to quit the full-time job, but not quite. I'm also barely managing to hold it together because I don't function well on lack of sleep.

The first thing you could look at is raising your Effective Hourly Rate (and NOT work any more hours).

Say you're on Upwork charging $40/hr.
Say you can only bill for half the hours you're working (because the rest of the time you're prospecting and doing admin).
Your Effective Hourly Rate is $20/hr. You're earning $200 for every 10 hours worked.

You could ask yourself "How do I make $400 for every 10 hours worked?" ("How do I raise my Effective Hourly Rate to $40/hr?").

You could spend less time prospecting and doing admin

• (Dump it? Delegate it? Defer it?).
• You could also do it more effectively? Inbound vs Outbound? Filter out poor fits.
• Position yourself to attract your ideal client. Speaking of which... I firmly believe that until you're engaging the market and getting burned as well as meeting great prospects/clients then too much time trying to figure out your ideal client is wasted time. I'm figuring out my ideal client through the process of elimination (as per the great video in this thread: Finding your focus)

You could raise your Upwork hourly rate. (How would you do that? You'd probably niche down and be "The gal who writes crypto copy", "The gal who writes About pages", or "The gal who setups up Constant Contact email sequences", rather than "The gal who writes copy".)

Listen to these two:

• www.tropicalmba.com/services
• www.tropicalmba.com/consulting

Start how you mean to continue?

• Lack of sleep isn't good.
• If it's your only way to earn more money then I humbly suggest you're doing something wrong.
• Sure, every now and then you'll have to go faster than marathon pace, and burn the midnight oil.
• I can pay my freelancers and cover my bills. I've then set the hours I'm willing to work, and if I want to grow my business in those set hours then I have to "figure it out"
• I don't subscribe to working 80 hour weeks and seeing less of my family so I can work 30 hour weeks and see more of your family. Yes, I'm blessed (not lucky) to have that choice, but I made it happen.

Set your hours and don't think of them as an unlimited resource. Your time and your health are precious.

At this point, I'm willing to put in time. Time is all I have.

Time is NOT all you have. You have skills and experience and the ability to add value. Maybe because you believe the above then you're not seeing the value you can bring to the table, and *maybe* you're not charging enough?




I'm pretty sure I posted these somewhere this week (maybe earlier in this thread even):

• "You can't invoice for input." (Blaise Brosnan)
• "The market doesn't pay for activity." (Blaise Brosnan)

We get paid by what we produce. We pay for what we consume (in time or money).

Careful of consuming too much.

• What if you already know enough?

HTH. It's a bit of a brain-dump, and I didn't answer everything. I'll come back "when I have the time" and see if I can add anything.

 

[Andy Black]

What would your thought process look like in tackling something like this? What are some of the questions that you'd ask yourself to identify opportunities? What are the entrepreneurial thinking patterns and mindset traits that people have in common when they're "good at having enough time"?

Here's a couple more lines I try to keep front and center:

• "The most important formula in business is R+R=Profit (Repeat Business plus Referrals equals Profit)" (Blaise Brosnan)
• "How many times can you sell that widget?" (Blaise Brosnan)

How can you get more repeat business?

How can you get more referrals?

How can you get paid for work you've already done?

 

[GoGetter24]

"Don't have enough time" is the purest form of abdication of responsibility there is.

The reason they all say that is because they're all losers. All of them, and all of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, all had exactly 24 hours per day, every day.

So blaming something that you can't change and that has never stopped anyone else succeeding is basically saying "I'm a loser" in a different way.

I knew someone who always said this dumb crap every day. The truth is though that they deliberately make it that they don't have time for the things that matter. They'll spend 3 hours playing games or doing some hobby that doesn't matter, and then they'll expand that hobby until it absorb all their free time. And then when it comes to doing something important they'll roll out the "there's just no time" lying.

The best response to "there's not enough time in the day" is "F*ck off loser".

 

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[S.Y.]

If what we already know can be utilized 100%, we don't even need to read another book.

Disagree.

You don't know what you don't know. Books are a great way to learn things we would have never otherwise learned.

Reading should not take precedence over taking action.

 

[minivanman]

Lack of time..... so why not make more time in a day? Someone might be able to make a dollar or 2 by making a time stretching clock! Have the minute hand work normal so it actually keeps perfect time but make the face of the clock have an extra 5 minutes and then just before the hand gets to the '12', have it go ahead and bypass the extra time you add to the clock. That's an extra 2 hours per day!