My business partner and I are closing the boardroom door behind us. It's a spring morning in 2018, and both phones go face down at the far end of the table. The team know not to knock unless something's on fire.
We've got one job today. One of our big goals for the year has been stuck for months, and we're not leaving the room until we know how we're going to get it moving.
Eight hours later we walk out with a brand new process map. (And a whiteboard that nobody's allowed to wipe.)
Urgent isn't important
Most days in a small business don't look like that. They look like one crisis after another. A client wants something by lunchtime. A supplier lets you down. Someone's off sick. You get to six o'clock having been flat out all day, and nothing you did moved the business forward an inch.
That's the trap. Urgent things shout. Important things wait quietly, and they'll wait for years if you let them.
Working in your business is doing the jobs. Working on it is stepping back and asking where it's going, and whether the way you do things is still the best way. Nobody else is going to book that time for you.
Go off grid
I like to think of it as a flight. If you were on a plane for three hours, your team would cope. Nobody could ring you, so nobody would try.
So give yourself a flight. Block out a morning, or a whole day if you can, put the phone in flight mode and go somewhere you won't be found. Then work only on what only you can do. Your goals for this year or this quarter. What's getting in the way. The changes that would make the biggest difference.
If you struggle to stay on one thing once you're in there, I use a cheap kitchen timer, and I explain how in How to stay focused in a distracted world.
Busy was never better
The best decisions in that business came out of days like that one, not out of the busy weeks around them. Busy has never been the same as better, and it took me far too long to learn it.
It's the same idea as putting yourself in the diary. If it isn't booked, it doesn't happen, and the business deserves a slot as much as you do.
First published May 2018.
