Ever get down to the end of the day and feel like you didn’t get anything done, or that you didn’t get the most important things done? Ever realize you’re late leaving the office, but the day’s distractions and emergencies hijacked your time and sapped your energy, and so you feel defeated? You’re suffering from a serious mental disorder known as tyrannus insigificantus (I made this up.). You live under the tyranny of the insignificant. You need to stop this killer dead in its tracks, before it kills you. Every task you elect to undertake in a given day falls into one of four categories:
1. Important and Urgent
2. Unimportant and Urgent
3. Important and Not Urgent
4. Unimportant and Not Urgent
Urgent tasks can’t wait, non urgent ones can. Important tasks are those which produce income. Unimportant ones don’t. Guess which category you should live in? I will give you some time to reflect on this question. While you’re thinking about it, consider these points. First, you should never do anything that is unimportant. If something unimportant must get done, hire someone else to do it. You’re the rainmaker in the practice. Rainmakers should never do things that are unimportant.
At the end of 2013, I divided the fees and commissions I generated for the year through my own personal production (I excluded my associate advisors) by the number of actual appointments I had for the year, and then divided that number by 1.5, since that is the number of hours I allow for each client appointment. The result? I earn an average of $2,439.02 per hour when I am in my conference room.
When I take a vacation with my family or travel for missionary work, the real cost is hardly the airfare, hotels, food, and entertainment we spend. The real cost is $2,439.02 for each hour I am not in my conference room. Think about it. If I am out of the office for just four business days (I don’t work Mondays), and I miss 12 appointments, the cost is $43,902.36. Two weeks costs me $87,804.72. Three weeks is $131,707.08.
I am not going to waste time changing the toner cartridge in the printer, answering the telephone, or paying the bills. Someone recently asked me how much was my average electric bill. I said I hadn’t a clue because I had not seen one in years. I don’t even want to waste time signing the checks. My controller has a rubber stamp of my signature and uses it to sign the checks. Now, right there, some of you are saying, that’s a good way to get ripped off. I say paying your own bills and signing your own checks costs $2,439.02 an hour. Delegate these responsibilities.
Delegation requires trust. You have to trust others or you will never grow your business beyond yourself. Now that we have agreed you will no longer do unimportant tasks, we have eliminated options two and four above as candidates for the category in which you should live.
Second, you should never allow an important (that is, income producing) task to become urgent through procrastination, poor planning, or neglect. The best time to do something important is right now. You must guard yourself, and this requires self-discipline. It’s easy to want to be available to everyone, and answer all their questions and make all their decisions, since you’re the boss, and you know everything. Avoid this thinking. There is no efficiency in your being everyone’s almanac or quarterback. New staff members are often taken aback when they ask me trivial questions or want me to weigh in on a decision about some non critical matter, and I respond with, “I’d check with [insert new staff member’s name] on that.” After momentary confusion, it registers that I am telling the inquirer two things: “Don’t ask me to get involved in unimportant matters,” and “Handle it yourself.”
If you are continually focused on performing only important (that is, only income producing) tasks, little, if anything, that is truly important will ever become urgent. Avoid creating urgencies by never performing unimportant tasks. There is always time for the important tasks, if you avoid the unimportant ones. Now that we agreed you will never allow an important task to become urgent, we have eliminated number one above as a candidate for the category in which you should live. This leaves category number three, this is where you live: Important, but Not Urgent.