Business or Busyness: How Strategic Planning and Delegation Save You from Managing Chaos

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I have been known to say that I am busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Except I don't always say but. But it's with like YouTube we got to make sure we aren't saying anything like that in the first minute and a half. In many cases I realize that is self inflicted. You look at me like, yeah, I know you do that to yourself all the time, Josh, you moron.

Not saying a word.

You don't need to. You don't need to. But we are going to have you say some words in a bit because are you working on your business or are you just working on busyness? When you. As soon as you sent me that, I was like, yeah, we're doing this.

Yep.

Speaking of which, let's do this. Stay tuned.

She's the CEO, he's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need the business fix. Okay, we're supposed to banter, cuz that's what I have here on the script.

Yep.

And I, I wanted to throw a curveball at you because normally I'm like, hey, what are you excited about? What's going on? The oh, look on your face.

I love surprises.

I know, I know. That's why I'm doing this. Graduate of Leadership Ohio. Torchbearers Leadership Akron, Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses, Scalar Raider Neo and Community Leadership Institute. You have received 30 for the future award. The greater. There's an achievement of excellent award from nsme. What's next?

I don't know. Well, I want to get my PhD. Remember we talked about this?

We did.

Because I'm bored.

Because you should have more busyness.

And I wrote a book and now I do podcasts with you and I do another podcast. I mean I don't. Are you.

You think that's enough?

No, it's never enough. I need more things. I want Leadership America. I don't think they make one, but.

If they did, I would, I would.

Love to do it. So I don't know what's next? I should ask the listeners. Yeah, tell me, is there something you should be doing?

Put it in. We're going to do the YouTube thing and be like, put it in the comments below. What Chrissy should do next.

Yeah, I, Yeah, I feel like you're segueing into busyness, but I'm going to ask you what's going on in your life, Josh first, because I feel like that was hurts.

Why does that hurt? I mean, this is a lot of things. It is and it's a great list of accolades and that's why I wanted to bring it up because it truly is. What's funny is I go the polar opposite. Like, I don't look at awards. I don't see those things. I don't do those things. I'm not typically involved with the stuff that's around that. But I mean, so I'm now, I guess I would say is what's new or what's different is. So I am now on the board for Main Street Barberton.

Nice.

Yeah. This studios, for those of you that don't know, is here in Barberton. We're in downtown Barberton. I'm excited about it. I'm also heading up the promotions committee and we've got some really cool stuff coming up. So that to me, there's a. Just a great crew of people involved with this to. To be gathering. I mean, you're on enough boards too. You know that when you're, when you're, when you're all looking forward to moving something forward. Yeah, it really, it's work. But you're like, hey, we're, we're, we're doing this for the right reasons. And that to me is. That's what I'm excited about to get into the topic.

Yep.

2016 survey by the Alternative Board found that business owners spend an average of 68% of their time on daily operations, leaving only 32% for strategic work. Those numbers sound right to you?

I think if you're a small business owner, it's still low on the daily operations part.

I kind of agree with that.

I think it's like 90 10.

Yeah. No, and there's days where I'm like, it's 100. In fact, it's 110 and minus 10 on some days. This week we're going to talk about the busy ness trap working in versus working on why owners get stuck. I think I'll be able to speak better than that one. Than you will. But charting a new course. I think you'll be able to speak better that one than I will. And we'll also kind of talk about the cost of it, because we all know. I mean, it's one of those things. It's not a. It's not a tangible cost. It does not necessarily show up in your balance sheet.

Yeah.

But, boy, does it cost you a lot of money.

It can.

Yeah.

Especially if you're not working on the right things.

Yeah. Oh, 100%. Part of what you guys do with clarity is you look at some of the strategic growth.

Yeah.

Why do so many business owners fall into this busyness trap instead of the business trap?

I think there's the allure of control versus the difficulty of delegating. So, I mean, crossing things off your list feels really great. You get that dopamine hit, everything's wonderful. At the same time, most of us are small business owners because we didn't like being employees. Some of us. Some of us were just like, we knew we weren't going to be a good employee from the beginning we've talked.

We'Re both completely unemployable, unemployable small business.

Owners, but at the same time, you're doing all the things, so you want to keep doing all the things. And you're a control freak most likely, too. And so, you know, control is often disguised as fear, and delegation feels like loss. So if I've got to give it to somebody, then where is my value tied to me? Like, I'm not doing that thing anymore. Like, I don't feel important. I'm not. I'm not in front of every client. Then are they going to forget about me? No, they're not going to forget about you. But I think that's. That's easy because you.

You will be the first phone call when something goes wrong. They are not going to forget about you.

No, no. I think the other. You need to ask yourself a question as a business owner, especially as you're starting to grow, is, do you want to be effective or involved in everything? Which do you want? You want to be good, you want to be great? Which do you want?

Yes. Yes. That's my answer to that one. Do I want to be effective or do I want to be involved in everything? Yes.

No, you can't do both. You got to choose. Because as you're scaling, I mean, come on, when you have five people to run podcasts for, it's different than when you have 50. Right. As someone who's now doing, yeah, 150, can you do all the things all at once and Stay sane. And people want to be your friends still. No. The answer is no.

They were ever my friend to begin with.

Well, the other thing I would say, too, about delegating when you have teams is that when you jump in, you rob somebody of the ability to kind of grow. So you're robbing them of their growth opportunity.

Yeah. No, I. It's funny, a lot of that, I mean, just rings so true with me. I mean, what. What. What's a. Another point that you've got with this? Because I know you've got.

I've got, I think four, five, six. I have six.

Oh, I know. Okay.

Like, we talk about immune.

You can just roll on this. I will.

You just want to riff as I do it. Okay.

Because I'm gonna sit here and cringe and tell you how I'm screwing this up.

So immediate gratification versus strategic discipline. So when we're talking about, you know, when you're in the business and you're working in it, you're firefighting. And firefighting can feel like momentum and strategy, the things that are really going to drive your business forward, but may take time. It feels slow, but that's what really moves the needle. So you've really got to think about, you know, what is more important. Should I be working on this project? Like, for me, I'm working on designing some curriculum right now. Should I be working on the curriculum design? Or should I be working on, like, our social media post for tomorrow? I've got people that can do the social media post for tomorrow. I should be working on the content creation and curriculum. And the other thing, especially with immediate gratification versus strategic discipline. And I know this is you. You're like, I'll plan when things calm down. I'll do my website when things aren't busy. No, you won't. That equals never.

I actually came up with a good analogy for you when. When you're talking about the strategy feels slow and the firefighting feels like momentum. Because to me, that. That was a really good one. The thing that popped into my head was a boat.

Oh, okay.

You can sit there and you can polish the chrome in the boat and you can see what you're getting done.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, that boat is halfway underwater. As you're bailing that boat out. As you're using a bucket to bail that boat out so the boat can ride, the boat can rise.

Yeah.

You don't necessarily see that progress because whatever bucket you just took out, the water fills back in there.

Yeah.

Now, over time, after you take 100 buckets out, the boat's higher in the water.

Yeah.

But you didn't necessarily see it happen. Whereas if you're just up there polishing.

The chrome, you can see it.

You can see what you're doing. And that, to me is like the. That's what makes the strategy tough because it's like, okay, this is this bigger thing and, or digging in sand. I mean, it just fills back in that hole. Are you moving sand? Yes, but it fills it back in.

Yeah. I think some of that comes with, you know, fear of the unknown versus strategic overwhelm. So, you know, most people aren't avoiding strategy, they're afraid of it because they don't know what to do with it. So we confuse the ambiguity of, like, I don't know, with impossibility, which is I can't do it. So it's really important that, you know, strategic planning is a muscle. You've got to use it. I know that that's something that I've struggled with at times.

Sure.

And so finding the right type of professional development to kind of push me in that direction. I mean, we talked about, like, all the different things I've done. Part of it is, you know, continuing to be a student of learning and making sure that, you know, you're only as good as. As you continue to build your toolbox. You know, Archalochus said, we don't. We don't fail to the level. What is it? We don't fail to. Let me think. Arche locus. You expect to rise to the level of your expectations, but you don't. You fail to the level of your training. So it's how and what do I do to kind of continue to move myself forward? And the other part that I would say, too, is that as you're growing and you want to work on your business, not necessarily in your business, you're wanting to deal with more innovation. And innovation requires white space. It requires time. It requires. I'm going to schedule this and I'm actually going to give myself the ability to do it. I'm not going to get frustrated because I don't have any margin in my time to be able to think about the big things. So, I mean, it's something else. When we talked about, and I think you've said this too, like, if everything runs through you, you've built a cage, not a company.

Yep.

So it's, how do I continue to give white space to myself to be able to think about what are the things that are coming. Adopting AI, adopting a different type of business practice. Those are the things that have come up from the time that I've had from a white space perspective. And you don't have to go somewhere. I mean, some people, I tend to go off grid. If I can, I'll block my calendar because I can find a lot of things to do. If I don't do that intentionally, I think it's really important.

It's funny because for me, it's why I joke about it. But, like, my ideas for the business come to me. Not when I'm sitting in front of my computer working on something, they come to me when I'm in the shower, they come to me when I'm on the lawnmower, they come to me. I mean, when. When there's, I guess I would say no distractions. When there's no noise.

Yeah.

That is when my strategic ideas and the things that I need to do in the business come to me.

Yeah.

Now, executing on those is always a different story, because as soon as I sit down in front of the computer, I'm like, oh, I've got this great task list sitting in front of me, half of which is emails that I just are probably spam that I need to go through.

Right. Efficiencies.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. And it's. It's putting in that time. And I like how you said you just block that off where it's just, this is the only thing that I'm going to have open and that's all I'm going to work on.

Well, I think if you have a team, too, it's really important that you get yourself out of being reactive, because reactive leadership becomes reactive culture.

Yes.

And so it's really important if you're always in the weeds, they're not going to learn to survive. They're not going to learn. You're not leading. Like, you're just. You're creating problems.

You're managing.

Yep. And when everything is urgent, nothing is important.

Right.

So how you set your tone with.

Leadership, they talk about how. Because, you know, I love analogies.

Yes.

They talk about, like with forest fires, they talk about managing the fire. They. That that's a fire. That is a problem that they are trying to manage. They are not trying to lead the fire.

Yeah.

Leading the fire would mean Smokey the Bear went up to whoever was going to start the fire and punch them in the face before it ever happened.

Yeah.

Much easier to lead than to manage. Now, what's more difficult is getting to the point where you can lead instead of manage that. That has to be a concerted effort. And that's one of those things where you have to do both roles at.

The same time and requires the strategy to get there. But if you don't give yourself the time to build that strategy of who you need to be and how you need to lead and how you need to delegate, you're going to continue to be on that hamster wheel. I mean, one thing I would say, too, about reactive leadership is that leadership tone is contagious, and that that is especially with exhaustion. So if you are creating a culture where you are tired all the time because you are always putting out fires and you're like, I don't know why my team's exhausted. Well, because they're watching you, dummy. Foreign.

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I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show. No, I. I get it. And I've. I've seen it. And part of that is too, is because if you're always putting out fires, you can't put out the next fire.

Yeah.

Because you're too busy putting out the last fire. I see it in leaders that don't pick up the phone right away, that don't answer emails right away. I do not answer every customer email within 20 minutes. If no.

And if your customer expects you to, they're not the right customer.

Right. But if an employee sends me an email or a message, I do my dang this. To make sure that that is priority number one.

Yeah.

Because now I am doing my best to lead them instead of just manage.

And you make a really good point, and one about, like, busyness undermines people. So if you are too busy to respond to your people, and it can also, I mean, busyness can also be a negative HR strategy. So if you're, you know, and your negative hr, negative HR strategy, which is code for don't do that. You can't grow people, you don't spend time with. You can't grow people that you don't respond to in email, that you don't have meetings with, that you don't do coaching with. I mean, performance issues oftentimes start with lack of feedback. We talked about that several times with, like, terminations and how to exit, how to say goodbye that, you know, oftentimes it's our fault as, as the business leader, we were too busy to clarify expectations for the people that we really want to be able to hand our work off to. I mean, it's, it's oftentimes those performance issues happen because of lack of feedback, not necessarily lack of intent. And so, you know, missed coaching, skipped onboarding. That's culture rot. It's going to be a slow drip to kind of destroy your organization and then you're even more busy. Yeah, culture rot.

I haven't heard you use that term.

It's a new. It's a. I mean, no, I guess.

It'S a good one.

I know. I was gonna say I've used it in the past, but I don't think I've used it in the term of this podcast. And it is, it's culture rot. I mean, if you're going to do the slow things you think about, like how mold grows, it's not all of a sudden. I mean, it happens slowly over time until it overtakes and you can't do anything with it. So prevent, do, do the preventative maintenance with your organization. Check in with your people when you're going to start figuring out what the strategy is to offload and delegate your tasks. Create some of those standard operating procedures and then train people over and over and over again and the time that you spend with them. Also make sure that you're holding the tone and tenor of, of who you want to be as a business leader. If you. Again, if you're acting like a firefighter or you're constantly pulling your hair out and you're frustrated and you wonder why people don't feel peace around you. I mean, it's, it's kind of easy, but I mean, sometimes we need the HR person or a consultant to kind of, or another business leader to kind of call us out on it. So, I mean, people need presence. They don't need you to be perfect. They need you to be present. They need you to be there. They need you to be focused on the things that are going to help them be able to do their job, which is helping make the business stronger. That's the other thing that I would say, Josh, too, is, as a business leader, the best thing that you can do for your people. Because I think oftentimes as small business leaders, we get attached to our people and we're like, I am working so that they have jobs, too. Well, if you're not working on the business to make the business stronger, you're not serving your people the way that you truly want to serve them. The best way for you to take care of your people is to make sure that your business is wildly successful. And you can't do that if you're in the weeds all day.

No, no. Because you have. I mean, I, I love how you say the. The best way to help them is to be wildly, wildly successful. Because then when we get a downturn, when there's an issue.

Yes.

They're like, okay, we're safe.

Yes. How do we help?

They're not going to be out of a job. They're not going to be right. They. And like you said, they. They approach you with, how do I help? It's interesting because to me, there. There's something that, like when, when. When I was looking at setting this episode up and we were talking about this, you. You may notice a theme here. First off, you know, I'm big on, and so are you on documented processes and systems.

Please.

If my editor, if she decides she's up and done editing, maybe her Internet connection goes out, whatever. I can pull someone in tomorrow.

Yeah.

Would it be a rough transition? Sure.

Absolutely.

But once again, all the processes are there. They're going to know exactly what to do and they're going to be able to execute on it. So anyone would be able to do that? Honest.

Anyone.

Anyone can do that task. They can. Like the, the task that you think makes you special, you can teach anyone to do.

Absolutely.

The other thing with that is you need to figure out how to effectively delegate those tasks and responsibilities without losing control.

Yes.

Making sure that they are done correctly. If they're done correctly, then there's no issue. Once again, anyone can do that task as long as you give them the guidance on it. And if they're. They've got the guidance on it, then once again, you've got the guardrails there, so you haven't lost control. You realize they're in a lane. They're going to stay in that lane. Anyone can do that task. Honest. Are you picking up the theme?

Yeah. You got to be honest about it. Stop tying your value to everybody needing you. That sounds like a case. Just go to therapy and work on that.

The other thing that I want to say is automation can help reduce some of that busy work.

Yes.

We had, we just brought on a new task management program that's been a huge help for us because now instead of like someone emailing someone else when they're done with something else and then they. Then I have to email someone else about something else because that person got that. No dumb dun, dun, dun, dun. It does this automatically look to automate those things because if anyone can do that task, it's repetitive, a computer probably can do it and someone has probably written a software program can do that.

Yeah.

The thing that I see so many people is they prioritize the tasks and the reason why I do it and I know so many other people doing. It's there. I can see it.

Yes.

It's super easy. Oh, look, here's this list of things that people have and it just happens to be called inbox. This. These are all things that I can do right now and feel really good about it. You talked about that dopamine hit from stuff like that.

And there are ways to change whether you have Outlook, whether you have Gmail, whatever it is. There are ways to change how you look at your email, even the way that the screen does, to, to eliminate the issues that you have with that dopamine hit.

Yeah. Oh, 100. And it's just a case of sitting down and looking at those things. The other thing that I always tell people is expectations. There's the key performance indicators that everyone talks about, but I really say it's expectations for people. If like I found that as I give people more tasks, as long as it's presented in a way, it's not like, hey, we, we're trying to get you to do more work for less money. As long as it's presented in a way like, hey, I'd really like for you to grow into this.

Yes.

When you tell people stuff like that, they're like, oh, they, they think highly of me. Yeah, they, they. Plus they're like, I get to do something new and different instead of just beating my head off of the desk the way I've been doing.

And taking the busyness away from you is also important. To take the busyness away from your people. Help help reduce the weight from them. Everything you're saying makes sense now.

The one thing that I said the whole time is that anyone can do that task. Most people can do that task. The strategy. Guess what?

Who should do that task?

Correct. Now. Great. If someone says something and brings it up to you, awesome. But no one in your business is thinking about the strategy.

No, that's your job.

Correct. 100%. You need to be. I mean, someone. I mean, you may occasionally put someone at the helm and say, look, here's where we need to get. And someone else is driving the ship, but someone needs to tell the ship where to go.

Yeah.

If the captain doesn't say, we're going to this port, guess what? You're just going to drive around in the middle of the ocean, hope you're drifting.

That's not where you want to be, right?

Burning fuel, running out of. I mean, next thing you know, all your sailors have scurvy, there's a revolt, there's. It's just, it's just a bad thing. Make sure that you are pointed at a port and it's okay to change which port you're going to, but make sure that you are headed to that. What is, what's a warning sign besides sitting at my desk? What is a warning sign that you're stuck in busyness? I.

Well, I would say sometimes your team sometimes will notice it before you do.

Oh.

I mean, and part of that, I think, comes from, at least for me, it comes from being short, not being able to, you know, work through issues in a consistent way. You don't feel like you're making momentum towards things. I mean, we, we run our business on EOS, entrepreneurial operating system. So thought is that every 90 days you're going to forget, you're going to get off track. So that kind of helps us kind of create the guardrails. There's lots of different types of management systems. As a small business owner, you can use, you can use scaling up, you can use eos, you can use Davenport, you can use just. You can create it yourself. With ChatGPT, you don't have to have something fancy. But I would say a lot of times that your people are telling you, like, hey, seems like you're, you're straight. Can I handle that for you? I used to, you know, I'm the person that's supposed to schedule your meetings. Why are you scheduling all your meetings? That never happened to me. I never got a call from my assistant, was like, chrissy, what am I.

Supposed to be doing?

Why aren't you doing? Yeah, I mean, and we. There was a period of time, I mean, when I get really stressed in certain ways, there's certain things that will tax me and I'm like, I have to do everything. It's generally when things are like, at home, usually it's like, it's a kid thing that will throw me into that. It's usually not a business thing, but it's just like, I must control everything. That's usually. It's the warning sign. So I put guardrails around me, and people have the ability to say, hey, that's my job.

That's my job.

That's my job. I mean, I've gotten pretty good at it. But initially when I was starting to delegate things off, it was difficult. And some of it's like, well, can I have it back? No. That's the other part I would say, too, is if you start taking things back that you've handed to people, stop it. That should be your warning.

Like, oh, there's a big issue with. I mean, there's so many issues with that. Because if a. If you're taking it back, you have to look at why.

Yes.

Are you taking it back because you want it? Are you taking it back because they're screwing it up? If they're screwing it up, then we have to look at is because you've got wrong expectations or are they getting worse?

Well. And if they're not screwing it up and you're taking it back, the. The message that it's sending to the individual on your team is that I'm not good at my job or they don't trust me. And if you have someone who's a high performer and all of a sudden you're taking it back and you don't communicate why. Which should really just be because I was being dumb or I just. I. It's my. I just. I'm the problem. It's me. If you're doing that, you're creating a problem for that individual. They're not going to stay. So you. You de. Delegate. Chances are you're. You're going to lose a person.

And it's funny because it is that for someone like myself, too. If I, like at. When I was an employee, if they took a task away from me, I thought, oh, the. The end is nigh.

Yeah. Your email all of a sudden doesn't work.

Right. Right. How come my email doesn't work? Technical issue. Well, we'll fix it. By the way, could you come into my office?

I can't get my calendar. Why don't I have access to the. The customer database? So weird.

This is weird, right? Yeah. So they start thinking, oh, oh, I'm headed for the door. And maybe they start looking. So this is one that I was really excited to ask you about.

Oh, boy.

The challenge. I Mean, I know what the challenge is. I'm the operations guy. You're the, you're more directed towards the visionary. You're strong operationally, but you, you have more of the visionary side. What's the, what's the way to shift? How do you start to look at that? Because, like, I mean, it's funny to me, like we talk about it, I, I am my best. When I am looking two weeks out. How do we get everything done between now and two weeks out? We know some other individuals that can't see anything within the next 10 months. If it's within the next 10 months, they can't see it now. 10 months to 10 years, they're rock stars. How do you start to shift into that gear?

Yeah, I think part of it is you've been wired to do it all, but you have to remind yourself that what got you to where you are now is not going to get you to the next step.

Oh, I like that.

So shifting to visionary work, and it's something that. Josh, I will say I was not originally wired to do the work that I'm doing now. I had to learn how to do it. And so I've gotten some additional training. I mean, did 10 KSP, did scalerator, did all of those things. And now I work too, with strategic coach. And so it helps me once a quarter go away for a day and really start thinking about what are the things that we need to do to move the business forward. So I think it's about flexing that muscle. So if you can't start, well, I don't want to. I don't want to pay somebody, and I don't want to go away for a day. Okay, can you go away for 90 minutes? It's really starting to kind of give you the flexibility and thinking of, like, how do I do this? How do I delegate effectively? And then as I'm thinking about my business, I want to kind of dream about it. So in 12 months, what does it look like and don't think about, well, I'm going to have this many clients. No. What does your day look like in five years? What do you want your day to look like? Do you want to be doing exactly the same thing that you're doing right now? If the answer is yes, then don't change anything. But if you want to be in a bigger environment, I want to be speaking to crowds of people. I want to be training and running a. A $5 billion company. That's going to be a very different conversation, very different thought of where you need to be to kind of get yourself to the next step. So I think giving yourself permission to dream is something that's really important. And if you don't have that capacity, you're like, I don't have that skill. Find somebody who can teach it to you. Because there's a lot of different coaches and consultants that would. That would be happy to help you in that space. And that's my thought. When I'm deficient in something, I'm going to look and figure out what I need to do to get better at it.

Interesting. I like that. What is. And I love all those tips that I'm going to go home and start reading on that, Some of that. And locking out pieces of my calendar, which is going to be.

So it's just not. Just start with 90 minutes. You don't have to go a whole day. Just start with 90 minutes.

I may start with 90 seconds.

No, that's not enough.

Baby steps. Baby steps.

30 minutes. 30 minutes. Three times in a day. So it's a total of, like, you can do this.

I've, like, told Maureen, what about Bob? Baby step onto the sidewalk. Baby step into the street. I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful. I feel good, I feel great. I feel wonderful. Overcoming that resistance to delegation. Yeah, I've gotten much better about it. I feel great about it now, but. And it's not that I feel good, I feel great. I feel wonderful. What's your advice to someone that's.

That's going to do that so I'd suck it up? Well, that and, I mean, letting go doesn't mean losing control. It's still your business. You are getting people to come in to be the caretakers of your business. It's transferring clarity. So your job is to equip and trust, not hover and rescue.

Oh, I like that. I. It's funny, for me, as I've started to do more and more of that, the thing that I have found is I am so often, like, surprised at.

The result that you actually did it.

No, I'm. I'm much more surprised that I'm like, oh, they do that better than I do.

And you didn't die.

Well, it's. It's not even just that I didn't die. It's the fact that they do it better than I do.

Yes.

And I'm like, oh, that's. That is kind of their lane. It's what they specialize in. I should probably shut the hell up and get out of the way.

That's why we hire people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut up and get out of the way. You say suck it up, I say get out of the way.

Well, and if you are spent, the other part is, what is your zone of genius as a business owner? What is the thing that you are uniquely good at and what you need to do to drive the business forward? And if you're like, well, I just want to respond to emails all day.

No, that's not a business owner.

That's not a business owner. Or I just. But if you want to. If part of what you do is content creation, if part of what you do is strategic consulting, if. If the zone of genius is being in a room with other CEOs or other business owners and getting them to do the thing that they would never do if you weren't in the room, those are the places that you need to be and everybody else will support you and they'll probably be happy that you're not in the office doing the things that they want to do because they have jobs. So, yeah, it's all good.

I just want to talk. That's why we have podcasts. I just want to sit here and ramble on. So to avoid rambling on too much more, let's. Let's give a little bit of a summary with. So one is audit your time.

Yeah.

How are you spending this time? Be honest. I'm going to say this is going to be like the calorie tracker.

Take your calendar and dump it into chat GPT. If you're like, yeah, completely like, I don't know how to do this or keep a spreadsheet.

Yeah.

Time studies are still a thing.

They really are. But like I said, you have to be honest about it. It's like your calorie tracker. Because there are a lot of days where I've had 1700 calorie days that were 2,500 calorie days.

M and M's. I had four servings. No, you didn't. You had 16.

Right, right. Yeah. Look up what a serving of peanut butter is. And then you're like, oh, I just had a thousand calories of peanut butter and I thought that was one serving. So, yes, audit your time. Identify the delegatable tasks. I'm surprised I was able to say that. Figure out what you can do the in that. Give them something that is going to stretch them. You're probably, like I said, you're probably going to be pleasantly surprised when you're like, oh, this is something that I've held on to because I'm really the only one that knows how to do it. You give it to someone else and suddenly they do it better than you did and you're like, oh, I guess I should have done that a while ago. Document processes, schedule strategic time. Have we mentioned that? A little bit, yeah.

Planning, visioning. Yeah. All the things. Please just do it. Kill you. Promise.

Set some clear goals and metrics. And I mean, I really. That to me is. That's got to be like, how are you going to make sure that you are going to set aside that time to do that? And you're. I love your suggestion on 90 minutes there. Pick 90 minutes. This is just what you're doing. Shut the phone off. Yep, just. This is what you're. And in fact, I may even suggest sitting there with a scratch pad.

That's it. You turn off your email and you write on paper.

Yep. Makes sense. Makes sense. Quick shot. Topic.

Sure.

What's the one initial mindset shift a business owner needs to make to break free from the busyness trap?

Say, stop asking the question, what do I need to get done today? And start asking, what is the highest and best use of my time as a leader in this business?

Yikes.

I know, that's big. It is.

That's a big. I may have to study for that one.

Well, just remember, if your day is filled with tasks anyone else could do, you're not leading, you're managing chaos.

Yeah.

Stop managing chaos. Start leading.

Love it.

Yeah. All right. So you always talk about building repeatable machines, right? What's the first machine every owner should build to break the busy cycle? What are you going to do this week, Josh?

To me, it really is. It's setting that time aside. It's that. It's that building in that piece that is just. Look, this is the isolation to solve the bigger problems that we need to solve as business owners. And instead of. Yeah, the busyness.

This one hurt a little, didn't it?

Oh, no. I was looking forward to this topic because it'll give me some. Something to actually cry about later. Like, remember when we were kids and the parents would be like, I'll give you something to cry about. Yeah, this is. This is actually having something that I can identify to cry about.

I hope it's a good cathartic cry.

Oh, it will be.

While you're doing your 90 minute visioning.

It will be. No, I'll probably do that before or after. I don't want to blend those two activities. As always, thank you. I appreciate your abuse and your insights into this for those of you out there, make sure that you Visit Business Fix podcast.com for more information on this. And show us some love on the business fix on all the social media channels. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram.

All.

Just all of them. Just all of them. Next week we are will be discussing strategies for growth.

Yeah. So you better do your visioning homework.

Yeah, no, I, I, I, I'm, I'm scared that if I don't, I'm gonna be in big trouble. That being said, do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too, we will see you very soon.

Sam.