In the first piece about time thieves I wrote about distractions and how they end up eating up a lot of our focus and our productivity.
The reason some businesses are very successful is not because their CEOs magically have more than 24 hours per day, it comes down to that the job they do is more focused on tasks that bring the highest ROI for the business.
Of course it will be hard to know if you are prioritising on the right task if you are not aware of the time you commit and also what else you are missing out on because of the tasks that you are doing.
First we need to look at the tasks that will be the most important for your business. The highest on the list will be to spend time in sales and marketing, then in coaching and last on admin tasks that anyone could be doing. It does not mean that you ignore any of the lower value tasks but it is important to see where you spend most of your time.
One typical time thief when it comes to the admin part is programming. Many owners love to program and do so with passion, however the program will have zero impact without any customers and also if an owner is struggling with finding time and is close to a burnout the programming is in the way of the growth of the gym.
And if a gym is struggling with their time, and income I would try to take time from programming and spend that time in growing the gym instead. It is a hard and a lot of pride involved because maybe the programming is world class and brings really good athlete development but all that does not matter if the gym is struggling and the owner is burnt out.
I always challenge owners to stop programming for 3-6 months and try “done for you” program. There are plenty of providers out there like CAP, Level Method, Beyond Rx, Comptrain, NcFit, Mayhem etc. I know some gymoners spending up to crazy 8 hours a week for their programming. So during that trial period you spend those 2-8 hours you save per week in growing you business. It might be doing more PTs, it might be conducting more sales and intros or building a nutrition program.
After those 6 months you reevaluate how the members are doing, and what has happened to you and your time, your stress level and your focus. You can always go back to programming if that is what you love, but it might be a sign you need someone else helping you with the higher level tasks in that case.
Kill those time thieves!
Cheers
Rickard
Ps. If you have another time thief you know about and you are not killing, I want you to take an active decision of how to remove it. If you don’t know how feel free to write me rickard@escapistcrossfit.com
