What would you do if you had less time?

Last week I spoke at the AusMumpreneurs conference and MC’d their awards night. While many of the businesses showcased were relatively small and new there was also a great turn out of sizeable businesses with at least a decade of experience under their belts.

For those of you who have been living under a stone, mumpreneurs are mums who are also entrepreneurs. The big difference between a regular entrepreneur and a mumpreneur is time. Mumpreneurs have even less of it than entrepreneurs. So while most entrepreneurs can and do throw hours at their business to make it a success, mumpreneurs can’t do this because they are also raising a family.

So does having less time available to grow a business cause it to suffer? I don’t think so, and certainly not according to the successful mumpreneur businesses of last week. I have spoken to many mumpreneurs over the years and believe that they leap the time hurdle by being enormously focused and driven. They simply don’t waste time.

If it’s a networking event mumpreneurs know exactly why they are attending and what they want to get out of it. If it’s a sales call they are focused on making it quick and effective. If it’s product development they nail the important parts rather than twiddle around. If it’s releasing a new product they know they haven’t time to make it perfect, but 90% is good enough. If it’s collecting cash they are rigorous about diarising calls to debtors. And so it goes on.

Last week I was reading about a CEO who was resigning after more than two decades of 16 hour days and seven day weeks. I sensed that while he was proud of his business success he regretted the time he hadn’t spent with family and friends.

It’s easy to assume your business needs you 24/7, but does it really?

If you only had 40 hours available to spend on your business next week, what would you do? More importantly, what wouldn’t you do? Setting yourself a maximum amount of time is like budgeting. You soon work out what constitutes an important spend and what doesn’t. It’s the key to making you so very much more effective.

So this week, why don’t you try capping your time?

Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses:Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business”  and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).