How to Get More Time to Focus on What You Do Best

We all get caught up in the hustle of our business at times. It takes us away from the things we want to (and should) spend more time on, the things that bring us greater fulfillment from our work, allow us to make a bigger impact, and accelerate the growth of our business.

I’d like to share with you an exercise I learned from Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach that will help free up more time and energy to focus on those things.

Grab a legal pad and list out all the things you do in your business. Add to that list over the next couple of weeks as you remember stuff.

Don’t forget to include stuff that comes up monthly, quarterly and yearly.

Now on another sheet of paper draw, two lines so you have four quadrants and categorize everything in one of these four areas. Start with the first category, and work your way down.

INCOMPETENT:

This is the stuff that you make a mess of when you try to do it. The classic example for most people here is bookkeeping.

COMPETENT:

This is the stuff you can do to minimum standards, but which drains you, frustrates you, and which you probably procrastinate at.

EXCELLENCE:

This one is tricky because you’re quite good at this stuff. You even kind of enjoy it because people pat you on the back for it. However, it’s not really unique genius.

UNIQUE GENIUS:

This is the stuff that lights you up. It’s the stuff that energizes you, and you do it at far above average. When you focus on this stuff, it feeds you AND it feeds your business. It’s really the “product” you are selling, and the reason why people want to work with YOU over someone else.

You want to spend as much of your time as possible doing this stuff.

For the tasks in the incompetent, competent, and excellence categories, you will want to delegate, systematize, and/or automate it. In fact, you can even just ditch it if nothing bad will happen or it’s just not that important.

Over time, this will allow you to focus on increasing the amount of time you spend on your unique genius.

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What’s one unique genius thing you know you do exceptionally well, it that lights you up, and it creates immense value for others? Share in the comments!

EXAMPLE: One thing I have learned is part of my unique genius is my ability to bring clarity to a situation by listening and asking good questions.

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