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If you want to be more present in your life and spend more time doing the things that make you feel alive…not just in your personal life but also in your business…and your current reality is the exact opposite of that…this episode is for you.

We’re going to discuss how to spend less time doing what you hate in your business and more time doing the things that energise you and grow your business.

As service based business owners we usually link making more money to taking on more clients. If we want to make more we will need to work more - because we are often selling our time. So growing tends to mean more work which equals more hours. 

When our workload increases we either increase the time we work (which is typically what we do in the beginning because we have more time than we have money…and we will happily trade our time for the increase in revenue), or if we can’t clock more of our own hours…we hire someone to help. We get more hands on deck. 

This is a pivot point for business owners and I see two very common mistakes here. One of the mistakes I see business owners make is they hire a new team member but they don’t actually lighten their own workload. It is possible to hire at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons but let’s say you have recognised that you need help, you really are at capacity and you can’t do things more efficiently than you already are so it’s time to get help.

What happens is we hire help but we’re not actually lightening our own workload. We are doing just as much…if not more. You hired help but you’re still maxed out. The number of hours you work is maxed out. The business capacity has increased. You can now serve more clients but YOU are spending just as much time in the business. On top of that, the type of work you are doing hasn’t changed much. You’re still working extended hours, you’re still not getting to those higher level work you really want to be doing (and know you should be doing) and you now also have someone you need to manage. Someone you need to make sure has everything they need to do their work well. And so you have more on our plate, more things to think about and make decisions about than ever before. And you question how this is even possible. How the heck am I working harder with help!

The second mistake is telling yourself that this level of working, the long hours, doing things you don’t enjoy for the majority of your day, is just the downside of being a business owner. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want to grow, make more money, you are going to have to make sacrifices. And this is because we see what other business owners do and we think it’s normal. This just is what it is. When we do come across business owners who are actually working less while their business is growing we convince ourselves that their business is just different or they have some magic formula or something we don’t know about.

The good news is…there is a magic bullet and I am going to share it with you today.

Doing more of the work that makes you come alive in your business, having more free time in your schedule WHILE growing your business will happen when you think differently about how you spend not only your time but your energy as well.

So what does this mean exactly?

There are certain activities inside your business that drain your energy.

What drains your energy will be different for you than it is for me but this is typically the things that my clients categorise as things that drain their energy.

Any administrative tasks.

Social media or content creation.

Following up on client payments

Writing reports or reading and sending emails.

It’s those tasks you really don’t enjoy doing. It’s not that these tasks aren’t important…they need to happen for the backend of the business to run smoothly but YOU find no joy in doing them.

Then there are those tasks that you LOVE doing. The things that light you up. They give you energy. Those activities inside your business that you can do all day long. Again these are different for every business owner AND it’s typically a handful of things. 1-3 things that you really enjoy doing, things that put you in the zone. Where you really shine. It’s also the things that make the business money.

If you’re a coach or consultant it might be the workshops you host or the actual coaching or consulting sessions where you help your clients.

If you’re a professional photographer it’s taking the pictures.

If you’re a marketing agency it might be something like developing the marketing strategy for your clients.

If you’re an interior designer it might be conceptualising and pitching the unique design of a project.

It’s those activities inside your business that align with your strengths and passion. You love doing it and it makes the business money.

It’s these high energy, high impact activities that YOU want to prioritise. You want to spend more of your time doing them. If you aren’t in a position financially to hire help yet, then these activities should take priority and also get the most of your time. You want to make time for these activities first before you do anything else.

If you are ready to hire then you want to hire to free up your time so you can spend time in those activities and nothing else. You don’t want to hire just to increase capacity. To have more hands to do the work. You want to hire specifically for the tasks and activities that don’t light you up in your business.

This means you intentionally hire people to take specific tasks off your plate that you don’t enjoy doing, you’re not just hiring to get more work done.

Consider the things that get your time every day. How much of it directly generates revenue inside your business and how much of those things that directly generates revenue do you actually love doing?

One of my clients loves building relationships and connecting with potential new clients and yet she was spending almost all of her time writing reports and doing admin, checking her team’s work. The thing that would grow the business and that lights her up is the thing that got the last sliver of her energy at the end of the day. By the time she got to the thing she loved and that would make the biggest impact in her business she was drained. 

Imagine spending 80 or even 90% of your time on the things that give you energy and grow the business. You would be on fire. You would be more productive. You would be excited to show up for your business. You would be more creative, feel more fulfilled. When your business gives you energy the effect of that will ripple through everything you do. You doing more of what you love will not only have a positive impact on you but also on your business, your team, and your clients. 

You will also work fewer hours while your business continues to grow - this is because the activities that energise you and grow your business are typically only a handful of things. Not a laundry list of things. When I sat down with my client we could pin point two very specific activities that make the most money for her business and that she loves doing. Imagine only doing two things in your business AND making more money.

The more time you spend on the things you really enjoy, the more fun you will have. The more you will enjoy your business.

Your business will be more efficient (a: because you will need to have certain structures in place for others to do the work you don’t enjoy, and b: because your focus and attention will be on the needle movers). A more efficient business is also typically a more profitable business because there is less waste of resources. 

And because you will hire people who love doing what you hate, your team will be operating in their zone of genius and doing things way better and faster than you could ever do it yourself. And even if they only did it 70% as well as you do…it’s still a win because YOU’re not doing it.

Inside my coaching program, The School of Less Effort, we do regular time and energy audits. We look at where you are spending your time and which of those tasks make the most money and give you the most energy.

Once we know, we can prioritise those activities. The time and energy audit tells us exactly what you should prioritise, the exact systems and processes we need to put in place first to increase your business efficiency and free up time in your schedule, and it also reveals what positions/roles we need to build your team around first.

There is so much you can learn from simply asking the question: What do I LOVE doing inside my business that also generates money?

Focus on freeing up your time so you can do more of THAT. Your business will grow and you will have way more fun in the process.

Thank you for joining me on this episode! I will talk to you again next week.

You can book your consultation at ilonkaras.com/consultation.

Do you have a question on designing a business that can run smoothly with or without you?

Send me an email at ilonka@ilonkaras.com and I will answer it in the next episode.

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