No one seems to mention ‘time and motion’ studies anymore, but in “the old days” they were all the rage. Many of the processes I was forced to go through to establish just how effective I was being have (fortunately) stayed with me throughout my (depressingly long) career.
Though time and motion studies were all about the search for “the most efficient method of doing a task” they’re still worth bearing in mind now, especially if you consider keeping your business alive as “a task”.
Ask yourself this: What is the single activity that keeps your business alive?
Is it maintaining a client base that’s been unchanged in 10 years? Is it bringing in new clients because you only ever do project work so have no retainers? Is it reading blogs because they’re so darn interesting?
Chances are, a lot of the things you do every day aren’t things that really have an impact on your success; they’re just things you like to do (and you’ve become very good at making seem reasonable and legitimate so that you can keep doing them).
“Networking” is a CLASSIC way of doing something fun by making it sound legitimate, but anything that takes you away from activities that genuinely matter to your business will - of course - slow your progress.
You could argue that doing ‘fun things’ benefits your company because it’s good for your mental health - and that’s a BRILLIANT card to play - but at least be honest with yourself. Have some fun, don’t pretend it achieves anything, but then get stuck back in. At the very worst you can see the ‘real work’ as earning the brownie points required to allow yourself the next fun thing.
Now stop reading blogs and go do some real work!