This was a new concept to me just a few short years ago. What do you mean time ON your business, not IN your business? Basically, we need to zoom out and take a helicopter view. This takes in the entire business structure, not just the day-to-day.
We bang on about this here at Big Hearted Education all the time. I have talked about batching before. This is where you dedicate blocks of time to complete an entire task at once. Like creating systems that are easy to implement, but may require some discipline to maintain. It may be tricky at first, but once you do it a few times and realise that it saves you hours upon hours, you will be more motivated to complete these tasks in one go.
For example, a small investment of 3 hours on one weekend, planning a whole season of intentional teaching, will save you hours every week. You can plan the songs, stories, crafts, gardening, excursions etc in one day - meaning you can order things in bulk, and pre-purchase things you need to complete the tasks. That way they are there when you need them. You do not mindlessly spend, you stick to your budget. Having this pre-planned means you are not working outside your work hours every week. You know your direction and head towards it with confidence.
Let’s look at tax, are you an educator who put off sorting your receipts till it was a HUGE and overwhelming job? Spending a few hours every three months sorting this out means that you can check on your spending habits, and rein them in accordingly, you can see areas that can be pulled in or expanded well before the EOFY. So you can make larger purchases to suit your financial goal for the year, if that was your plan!
The whole idea of spending time ON your business means that you automate as much as you can. If you have to keep revisiting a task every day/week it means setting yourself up for it, pulling books out, getting the computer ready, and building yourself up to the task! It is easier to get into the mindset once and complete the task as many times as you can than to do it every day. Like your tax, programming, and ordering resources. Doing it once every 12 weeks is quicker than every week. It also means that it does not cut into your personal time as frequently.
Once you have these automation set up, you can reuse them time and again too. Having these things planned also frees up your brain space.
