What’s your job as an entrepreneur? What’s your primary role? Is it to make everyone happy and to do everything yourself? It’s not, right? It’s to lead your business, to control the business, to innovate new products or services, and to create something that improves the lives of others while providing you a healthy income and a rewarding life. You cannot fulfill that role of leader, innovator, and controller if you’re agreeing to do non-essential tasks.
You’re Losing Time for Your Business
Saying yes to everything means not having any time to focus on profitable and productive tasks. Learning to say no is an absolute must for any entrepreneur. It’s a necessity. Now there are two different ways that non-essential tasks come your direction. The first occurs when someone approaches you and asks you to make a commitment to them. It may be a time commitment or they may ask if you want to join them in a business venture.
If there isn’t a benefit in it for you and your business, then it isn’t worth your time. Say no. People will say no to you. It isn’t personal, it’s practical. If you’re someone that has trouble saying no, now is the perfect time to get over it. You can sidestep it by saying, “I’ll think about it,” but that’s only prolonging the agony.
Now the other way that non-essential tasks come your direction is from your own systems and processes. Stop the madness. Find tools to handle the tasks or outsource them to someone else. You don’t need to do everything yourself and if you try to, then you’re losing time. You’re not leaving enough time in your day to take care of the tasks and processes that grow your business.
How Do You Know if it’s Non-Essential?
There are a few questions you can ask to determine the importance of any question. The first is to determine if the task directly contributes to your bottom line. If the answer is no, then let it go. Another question you might ask is if the task is a priority to you. If the answer is no, then let it go. If you don’t want to do the task, if it’ll cost less than your hourly value to delegate it, or if it’s a skill that will take you ten times longer to do than someone else, then let it go.
The first step to saying no to non-essential tasks is to recognize them. The second step is to remember that you’re not in the business of making everyone happy. You’re an entrepreneur and your job is to grow your business. You can’t accomplish that if you’re always tending to basic tasks.
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