I want to let you in on a little secret. Working harder is not the answer.
In fact, the harder you work, chances are the less you’ll accomplish that really matters. I know this sounds easy for me to say, but hang in there with me as I walk through a key concept with you.
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Many of you have heard of “Pareto’s Principle” which states that 80 percent of your efforts produce 20 percent of your results, and that 20 percent of your effort produces 80 percent of your results. Well if this is true (and my experience shows me that it is) then let’s apply this concept more rigorously.
If you take that 20 percent of your actions that generate 80 percent of your results and apply the same distinction, then 20 percent of that 20 percent produces 80 percent of 80 percent of your results. That means that 4 percent of your effort (the 20 percent of 20 percent) generates 64 percent of your results.
And if you can bear with me for another math moment, apply this distinction one more time…
This means that 1 percent (20 percent of 20 percent of 20 percent) generates 50 percent of your results! Think about it–1 percent of your highest leverage work produces 50 percent of all your results!
Maui Mastermind Business Consultants use this idea to create something called the Time Mastery Pyramid™, which is an actual formula for you to quickly and accurately quantify the per hour value of four distinct types of time: A Time, B Time, C Time, and D Time.
D time is the 80 percent of unleveraged, wasteful time that only produces 20 percent of your total return. I call this time the “80 Percent Mass”.
C time is the leveraged 20 percent that produces 80 percent of your results. I call this time “Leveraged Time”
For most people this is the only distinction they have ever made about time. And while it’s better than most people have, if this is your only distinction on time, you are never going to earn what you are capable of earning, both in terms of income or net worth.
Next there is B time. This is the highly focused 4 percent that generates 64 percent of your results. I call this time the “4 percent Sweet Spot”.
And finally, there is the top of the pyramid–A time–the “Magic 1 Percent”. Fully 50 percent of your results comes from these activities.
Did you know that most people not only have no idea what activities of theirs fall into the above four categories, but they don’t even know they exist? How in the world can you create more A and B time if you don’t know what activities constitute A and B time for you?
Here is the real question for you: What activities do you do that fit into each of the four time categories above? What are your D activities? What are your C activities? What are your B activities? What are you’re A activities?
When you really get this distinction and shift your focus from “putting in hours” to upgrading the type of work you do (more A and B time, and less D time) in the hours you do work, the results are amazing.
Let me share an example with you. Imagine you are an attorney who charges $300 an hour. What would your D time activities be? Things like fixing a computer glitch, or making copies, or sorting out mail, or any of the things you do that you cannot bill a client for! What should you do with these activities? Delay them, delegate them, or dump them. You simply cannot afford to do them yourself.
What would your “C time” activities be?
Anything that is a billable time for you. This could include working on a legal brief, or reviewing a contract, or updating a client. Understand this: C time can provide you with a great income, but you will always have to work exceptionally hard to earn it. This is the trap that catches most high income professionals. They seek to increase their earnings by cranking out more hours. MISTAKE! More hours will only take you so far. Plus when you get there you’ll be exhausted from all that work, and you’ll be a stranger to your family!
The answer lies in A and B time. B time for this attorney might include building relationships with other professionals who refer over business. Or putting systems in place in their law firm so that their staff can get better results without needing so much of our fictional attorney’s time. It might also include creating an accounts receivable system that increases the collection on all the firms billings by 10 percent. You get the idea.
What would A time look like?
This could be speaking at a large conference where this attorney is able to generate new client relationships for his or her firm that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars of billable services. Or it could be writing a book that can be used to generate new business for the firm.
See the difference yet? D time is by definition something that you should get off your plate. C time is time that you do your work more effectively. A and B time, however, are when you step out of the “doingness” of the work and do something that improves your capacity to create results, or significantly pushes back your limiting factor (e.g. generating new clients, improving a critical system, etc.)
In fact, by focusing on upgrading your USE of time instead of focusing on increasing your hours worked, you can often double or triple your income, while at the same time lowering your working hours.
So now here comes the big question: How can you have more A and B time?
You won’t get it by “trying harder”. And you won’t get it by sitting down and saying, “Okay, let’s have A time right now.”
Sorry, it just doesn’t work that way. That would be like a parent saying to their three year old, “Right, let’s have an hour of quality time right now Junior.” How well do you think that would work?
What we discovered is that to get more A and B time you have to fundamentally alter the way you structure your day and your week.
In fact, when you learn and master the ways to structure your time you will automatically enjoy more A and B time.
Learn to Use Focus Days to get more done in less time. This is business leverage.
Here’s the most amazing part–you can accomplish HUGE results in 3 to 4 hours on your Focus Days. You might never have accomplished if you stayed on your treadmill or stayed buried in your “busyness” all day long.
Now maybe you can’t set aside two full days a week as Focus Days, but you can find one day a week, or at the very least HALF a day a week as your Focus Day.
There are so many other ideas I want to share with you about how to master your use of time. Ideas like creating “Prime Time” blocks to get more B and C things done on your Push Days. Or, how to leverage a personal assistant so that you accomplish more with much less effort. Or, how to handle the infoload of email, project notes, to do’s, etc that threatens to drown most people. Download our free book for more time tested tips to leverage your time and prepare your business to SCALE, SELL or grow.