Startup Q&A #13: Focus and Productivity

Hey, everybody. Matthew Paulson here. Today we are going to talk about choosing what projects to focus on. Personal productivity, focused learning and outsourcing and delegation. Let's do this. This is officially episode 13 of Startup Q and A, the online video show that helps small business owners, startup founders, and entrepreneurs grow their businesses faster and achieve their dreams of financial freedom. So whether you're just getting started or if you have a hundred employees, Startup Q and A is the online video show that will give you actionable ideas and advice that you can implement in your own business. Now, we are going to do something just a little bit different today, and we're going to have a theme. So instead of having a bunch of disjointed questions, all of the questions are going to be on one theme. And that theme today is focus, so that we can focus on doing the things that are most important in our businesses and, you know, not do the things that are distractions or things that aren't critical to what we do. So every question that I answer today, and the tip will be help. Will help you focus on doing the right things, getting the most important things done, not getting distracted, and just really identifying what's important in your business and in your life and focusing on those things. Before we dive into the questions about focus, I want to share my favorite book on personal productivity, and that is the book Essentialism. I think it's by Greg McKeon. And I really like this book because the author really encourages you to identify, what are the things that only you can do, that nobody else can do, that you're the best at, that you are uniquely qualified to do, that nobody else can do, then only do those things. I am the only person that can ever be the father to my children. No one else will ever be their father. So that is something that I have to do, and I have to do well, because nobody else can do it but me. So that is one of the things I should do. But there are lots of people that can do some of the other things that I do. You know, lots of people can do these video podcasts. Lots of people write books. Lots of people can organize a million cups or run an angel fund. You know, maybe I don't have to do all those things. So I really like that book because it, you know, it's very easy for us to say, well, I have to do all these things because I'm involved with them, and I said I would do them. But this is really a book that encourages you to say, okay, what do you really have to do to be successful? And then what are those things that you feel like you should do but you really don't have to do? And this book just does a really nice job of almost giving you permission to say, okay, there are some things that I can set aside that I don't really have to do so that I can focus on the things that are most important. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, you feel like you've got a million things on your plate that you just can't handle, I really encourage you to go read the book essentialism by Greg McKeon. It's just a really good book that will help you identify what is the most important parts of your life and your business and will help you focus on only those things. So reading that book is the tip of the week. Let's Dive into the questions. So every week we take four or five questions from Facebook or my website and then we answer them. So if you have a question you would like to submit on the show, go to the domain Startup Q and A co that will redirect you to my website. Then under the Startup Q and A Show menu item there is a link to submit a question. I also periodically just ask on my personal Facebook page if people have questions for the show. So if you see one of those posts, feel free to respond to that and ask your question there. And I will try to get to it on the show. And I do try to answer every question that is relevant. Sometimes it just takes me a few weeks to get to it. I record these maybe a month ahead of time. So if you asked a question and you haven't seen your answer yet, it could be already recorded waiting to come out on a future Monday. So don't feel like I haven't answered your question. I'm trying to answer every question that has come in. So the first question comes from my friend Sarah Warner and she asks I feel like things are moving super slowly and I'm already working 80 hours per week. What do I need to do to see the progress that I want to see on my projects? Or do I simply need to reset my expectations? So Sarah's question really is, what do I do if I'm working really hard and I'm not seeing the type of forward momentum or results that I want to see in the business that I have? So first, in general you have to ask yourself, am I really putting in the effort and the energy that I need to get my business or my project off the ground? You can't start a business working on, say a Tuesday night and a Saturday morning and think you're going to get anywhere. Unless you're actually putting in 20 to 30 hours of honest hard work on your business. That means calling customers, developing, marketing, doing product development, stuff like that. You are not going to get your business off the ground. You actually have to put in that work. Reading business books doesn't count. Talking to people that aren't going to be your customers about your business idea, it's just not going to get you where you need to be. You need to put in 20 to 30 hours a week on one project to get it off the ground. If you're not doing that, I encourage you to really focus on that one thing and go from there. In Sarah's situation, this isn't the case. She's already working like crazy. She has a full time job as a content marketing person over at an agency and she's got several side projects. On top of that, she has a podcast called Right Now. That's great. I've been on the show before. It's a great podcast for anybody that writes books or any other kind of content. She also is working on an audio drama. She's trying to write some books. So in Sarah's case, it's really a matter of focus. You can only do so many things well, especially if you have a day job that's sucking up a lot of your time. So your best 40 hours a week are already going to your job. You probably sleep 50, 60 hours a week and you don't have a ton of time left over to work on projects after that. So it's not realistic to expect that you're going to be able to do all of these things well with that limited amount of time that you have. So I would really encourage you to choose that one thing that you are the most passionate about, the thing that you're most excited about. Focus on that and let that be your one thing that you're doing in addition to your day job. So I know your podcast takes up a lot of time. Maybe have a season finale for that, take a break from it, focus on your audio drama or whatever you want to do next, and then go ahead and pick up the podcast later. It's easy to look at somebody like me and say, oh, Matt does a million different things. He's got MarketBeat, he's got GoGoPhoto Contest, US Golf, TV, the Angel Fund, Million Cups. The list just goes on and on and on. But the reality is I've got a lot of stuff on my LinkedIn profile. But that doesn't mean, you know, I'm focusing on all of those things at any given time. You know, I really am only in startup mode on something, you know, one thing at a time. So, you know, MarketBeat was founded in 2011. Go GoPhoto contest was founded in 2013. I signed up to be part of US Golf TV in 2014. You know, books were a big focus in 2015, early 2016, and then, you know, A Million Cups and the Angel Fund. You know, that was really later in 2016 when I started to focus on that. So press pause on everything but kind of that one project that you're most excited about, that you're focused on, go full force on that one project that you really want to move forward on and then switch to the next thing after that project has reached its natural conclusion. The next question comes from an anonymous listener and that person asks, what do you do to keep all of your tasks and projects organized and know what you should be working on right now? So how do you keep all of your different things that you need to do organized and how do you know what's important? So there are a ton of different tools and productivity systems that you can use to try to organize your life. There are systems like getting things done. There's task management systems like Trello or project management tools. There are a ton of these different things that you can try to use to organize your life. I'm not a big fan of really any of these because I think managing those tools can become tasks within themselves. And if you're spending too much time organizing your work, you're not actually doing the work that you're trying to organize. So I try to avoid any complicated systems and just do the work. So I have a pretty simple system. I use a text document that I store in Evernote, so it syncs across all my devices. But it's just a basic to do list of everything that I want to do in my business. So it's just a list of stuff that I've added that are 30 minute tasks at a time. Whenever I have something new to add to the list, I just put it on the bottom of the list. And then every morning I kind of start at the top of the list. I take maybe 10 things off that list and I say that's, you know, going to be my, my list for the day of things that I'm going to do. So it's really kind of a, a first in, first out kind of list so that I always feel like I'm Making forward progress. I'm crossing the oldest things off the list, adding new things to the bottom of the list. That way there's no item just sitting on there forever. And, you know, kind of a good way that I use to think about, kind of know, get ahead mentally under work that I'm going to do the next day, kind of at the end of each workday, I'll pick off the, you know, top 10 tasks for the next day that I'm going to do, put them on a separate Evernote document that's like called Today's Work or something like that, and just think about each of those things and how I'm going to accomplish them for a couple minutes at a time. That way my brain can kind of subconsciously think about those projects, you know, overnight or into the evening and while I'm sleeping, and then usually by the next morning, I have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to tackle those different things and make them work. So if you can start thinking about the next day's work a little bit ahead of time, your brain kind of those background processes will help you have a better understanding of how to accomplish those things before that day begins. My system is just really not complicated at all. It's a text document. I do the things at the top of the list that are the oldest things in the list first. When I add something new to the list on the bottom, it just gets put on the bottom of the list, and things eventually work their way to the top. The list is maybe a week long at any given time. I think it's also important to mention the types of things that make it onto that list. I don't put a big, broad new project on that list like start a new business, because what does that mean? What does that mean you're actually going to do? So I try to break it down into what is the next task that I need to do to move this project forward. So, say one of my big projects is to launch the startup Q and A podcast. A task might be to buy a camera and a microphone. A task might be to come up with a name for the show. It might be to come up with a script for a first episode or to figure out what I'm going to wear for that. Anything that makes it on my to do list should be a task item, a specific thing that you're going to do that will take, say, maybe 30 minutes. That way, if I have 10 of those a day that take 30 minutes, that's maybe five hours of solid work. In addition to all the email and other crap that comes in throughout the day. It's really simple. It doesn't take a lot of complicated software or anything fancy like that, and it works for me. It might not work for you, but the key is to try a lot of different things and see what system will work best for you. A simple to do list that's a first in, first out might work for you, but maybe you also want to do the getting instead. You want to do the getting things done system which might work out better for you. I don't know. So you try my system, see if it works for you. If it doesn't, move on to the next thing and maybe there'll be something else that works out for you. Next question comes from Ryan Rusher. And Ryan asks, how do I learn about scaling a business or entrepreneurship? Are there any good YouTube channels I should follow? What should I focus on learning? So there is no shortage of information about entrepreneurship. There are an untold number of books, podcasts, blogs, YouTube channels, webinars, magazines, all these kind of things written by tons of different people with tons of different levels of experience that will teach you how to grow your business. Really, the question is one who should I listen to? And then two what should I focus on learning. I think a big mistake that a lot of new entrepreneurs make is that they are in a constant mode of learning. They see a piece of business content like a book or a blog post or a tutorial, and they think it's interesting and they want to learn how to do it. So they go consume that content, even though it's really not what they should be focusing on right now. The problem is that consuming all of this great business content, while you might be learning something, it tends to be a distraction from actually working on your business. It's almost like entertainment more than it is something that moves your business forward. You reading a great book or watching a great YouTube video about business growth is not going to actually grow your business. So don't think that reading the next Jim Collins book or whatever business author you like is going to move your business forward because it just enriches you personally. But it doesn't move your business forward. It doesn't acquire customers. It doesn't drive revenue growth. It doesn't do anything other than give you some personal knowledge that you might be able to use at some point in the future. So my friend Jamie Tartage, she is the host of the Eventual Millionaire show. She talks about the idea of going on an information diet and what this means is that you should only consume the content that is directly applicable to what you're working on right now. So let's say I am working on growing my business through Facebook. It's at that point I should be buying that Facebook ads course and learning how to do Facebook ads. If I'm working on Facebook, I shouldn't bother learning about email marketing or webinar marketing or Twitter marketing. I should only learn about the thing that I'm working on right now. So that will limit the amount of content you consume to only what is relevant to your current task. And that way you won't be learning about something that you're not implementing right now. Because if your chances are, say you're learning about Twitter marketing, but you're not actually doing Twitter marketing yourself right now, by the time you get around to Twitter marketing, you'll probably have forgotten most of what you learned about and then you have to go back and read it again and you'll just end up wasting a bunch of time. So really focus on what am I working on right now in my business that I need to learn about and then go find resources for that specific topic. I don't really want to recommend any specific book or YouTube channel or anything like that because I don't know what you're working on. Ryan, right now, the one thing that I want to encourage you to think about whenever you're thinking about, hey, should I listen to this podcast or should I read this book? Is think about, okay, who is the author or host of this pod, who is the author of this book, host of this podcast, who is the person giving me the content? And then are they qualified to actually write about that? I feel like I'm qualified to talk about startup growth because I've done it a few times. But the problem is there's a lot of people that talk about entrepreneurship and business growth that have never actually built successful businesses on their own. They're just trying to make money by teaching entrepreneurs how to do webinar marketing or Facebook marketing. Yeah, maybe they've made a Facebook ad here and there, but they've never built a six or seven figure business doing what they're supposedly teaching us how to do. So be careful with that and say, if I'm thinking about reading something, who is this person? Check them on LinkedIn. What have they actually done other than the content that they're producing now? So how are they qualified to teach this to me? Is it because they read a Facebook ads course and they want to make money so now they're making me a Facebook ads course for me to read based on the information they read some other course or is it because they actually make millions of dollars a year selling e commerce products on Facebook? So really look at the qualifications of people that are wanting to teach you and only learn from people that actually have the experience to back up what they're teaching. Alright, the next question comes from scrolling down here a little bit. It's another anonymous question and this person asks what are some of the first things that I should outsource or delegate in my business so that I can focus on what is making my company money. So there are kind of two categories of things that I think you should outsource or delegate pretty early on in your business. The first thing you should not do is any professional work like accounting, tax, bookkeeping, legal work, anything where somebody is getting a degree, maybe a master's degree, and they're focusing on that one thing exclusively. You probably shouldn't do that yourself because you're going to screw it up and it's going to cost you money later and you're going to have to learn about it to do it in the first place and it's just going to end up being a time suck and, you know, it's just not a great use of your time. You know, think of like bookkeeping. You have to learn how to do like actual accounting. You have to learn QuickBooks, you have to learn how to import stuff into QuickBooks. You got to categorize stuff. And by the time you learn how to do that and actually get in the process of doing it, you'll probably make a mistake and then you'll have to get somebody to fix it for for you anyway. So just don't do those things. It's okay to spend some money to get a bookkeeper, an accountant and all that stuff in place so that you don't make the mistake, don't try to do it yourself, screw it up, and then have to fix it later. I made this mistake early on with American Consumer News llc. I was going to try to do the bookkeeping myself. I did the bookkeeping myself for the first couple of years. I did it very poorly in an Excel spreadsheet and I screwed it up. I was doing my own taxes. I shouldn't have, it turns out. So I was an S corp and my lawyer told me to do that without really telling me why and what the implications of that were. So I was supposed to be paying myself payroll and I wasn't doing that. So I had to Go back and refile two or three years of returns, hire myself as an employee retroactively. I had to go back and do unemployment tax for the state and federal government. And it was just a big mess. It was like 25 tax forms I had to redo. Probably cost me about five grand all in all, to fix it. I did get it fixed eventually, with the help of a competent accountant. But it would have been a lot smarter of me just to pay an accountant a couple hundred bucks a month ahead of time to do it the right way from the beginning. So, you know, hire a bookkeeper to do your books, hire an accountant to do your taxes, hire a lawyer to set up your LLC or answer any complicated legal questions. You know, don't do your own trademark. Hire a trademark attorney, Spend a couple grand to do it yourself. Like when we applied for the MarketBeat trademark, at first, you know, the US patent and trademark said, no, it's too generic. But my attorney came up with a great counter argument. And then we got the trademark for MarketBeat. So now nobody else in the finance and investing space can use the MarketBeat brand because we have that trademark. And if I had done it myself, I probably would have given up when the USPTO said no. But my attorney said, hey, we've got a good argument here. We could try to win this. Because I got that great advice and had a great person working for me. A guy's name is Patrick Knecht. He's over at Boyce Law Firm in Sioux Falls here. Did a really good job on my trademark. But because he gave me great advice and said, here we can try this strategy. Here's what it's going to cost. Here's the likelihood. I think that it's going to work or not work, because he was working for me and I was paying him decent money to do it, he gave me great advice, and we were able to get that trademark. So, yeah, definitely use a competent attorney. Don't be afraid of the costs. Some attorneys will try to rack up the hourly fees, but if you find a good one, they won't nickel and dime you to death. So definitely bookkeeper, accountant, lawyer. Have those people on your side. Don't try to do it yourself. And then kind of the other category of work that I think that you should try to delegate or outsource early on is stuff that is just very repetitive in nature and doesn't require a lot of independent thinking. So one of the first hires that I made at MarketBeat was a customer service position. So I hired my Friend Stevie Shea, as a customer service manager, I guess is your job title. But at MarketBeat we probably get the same 10 questions over and over again every day. So almost every day there's somebody that wants to cancel their subscription, there's somebody that wants to upgrade, there's somebody that's not getting their emails, there's somebody that needs help adding a stock to their watch list, there's somebody that's complaining that a number is often an article by a penny. We just get the same emails over and over again. And I thought, you know, I probably don't need to be the person responding to them. So I brought Stevie on board. I trained her how to answer all the questions, those questions. So she answers all the questions that she can and then assigns the rest to me. That probably saves me two hours a day of legitimate work of just solid answering emails that she does for me. And that frees me up to work on marketing and sales and the types of things that are actually going to grow the business. Whether it's me answering customer service emails or Stevie, nobody's really going to know or care. So the fact that she is doing network from frees me up to work on more important. What she does is obviously important too, but will help me focus on the things that will actually grow the business. Anything where it's a task that can be, you can easily train somebody to do it. And the work is pretty consistently the same thing. That's pretty low hanging fruit in terms of outsourcing and delegation. So if you're full up on time, you're really busy, look at all the things that you do and then find the things that are easiest to teach to somebody else and then go hire somebody to do that for you. So I hope that answers your question. I think that is the last question today. So those are the questions. If you would like to subscribe to Startup Q and A and get next Monday show delivered to you automatically go to the domain startupqa Co and there will be links to subscribe via email, Facebook, RSS, iTunes, YouTube and Stitcher. We really try to be everywhere with the show so that you can consume it in whatever format you want and whatever channel you want and whatever platform that you want. So we're really trying to be everywhere. You want to watch it on YouTube, you can do that. You want an audio podcast, you can do that. You want to subscribe on Stitcher, you can do that. You want to watch it on Facebook, it's on our Facebook page. So we really just try to make it as broadly available as possible. You can also personally follow me on facebook@facebook.com matthewpolfsonpage or if you want to add me as a friend on Facebook, it's just Facebook.com MatthewPolfsen I'm also on Twitter. My user ID is MatthewDP. So Matthew and then D as in dog, P as in pony. And if you enjoyed the show today, take a minute and go onto itunes. Leave us a five star review and that way itunes will promote our show and hopefully, hopefully more people will learn about startup Q and A so that we can help more people grow their businesses faster and achieve their dreams of financial freedom. So that is kind of our first theme show. Theme is focused and I think we're going to do more of these to help the content be a little bit more consistent. So maybe we'll have a show about email marketing or a show about who knows what. But if you have ideas for a theme of a show, feel free to let me know. Send me an email mattattpulsen.com or send me a message on Facebook. I think the kind of theme is the way to go to help the content just be more consistent from show to show to show. That way we're not answering a question about venture capital and then one about productivity and then one about email marketing. And that way there's just a better theme in each episode. I think that's pretty much it for today. I'll see you guys next Monday.