1.2 Clarify Your Goals to Free Up Time

At this stage of the process, you will have a good idea of your target market, their requirements, your solution for them and your business objectives.  By this time, you should be spending a bit more time thinking about where the business is going and just that time alone will start to engage more productive thinking.

In my case I was in the trenches for many years and focussed on survival and the only time I had for creative thought was in the bathroom or when I went away on holiday.  As I started implementing some of the strategies outlined above, I was able to do a lot more of the work that a business owner should be doing and create more clarity about where the business was going.  The interesting thing that I found is that setting goals and creating a vision for where the business could go is not an event, it is a process that evolves and grows.  It is inextricably linked with the other aspects of the business that are continually developing and evolving and to attempt to create that in one day is probably not possible (certainly not on the numerous times I did it anyway). The process for creating a vision is a five step process over an extended period of time and the result at the end of the last session will be significantly more ambitious and have far greater clarity that what was concluded in the first session.  The process could be repeated continually and will continue to grow as will the organisation.

As the clarity of your goals begins to sharpen, so too will the strategy to achieve them.  This in turn will enable you to further identify the highest value use of your time and so free up time by delegating, outsourcing or deleting when necessary.