A quick reminder that the time matrix is a tool you can use to gain independence from your business. We’ve been talking about it for the past 2 weeks. To recap, you record 15-30 min sections of your time each day for two weeks for a powerful data set that can change the way you do business forever.
After doing this for at least 2 weeks – for a picture that captures all monthly cycles completing this for a complete calendar month will be required. The more data you have the more accurate it will be.
Some key rules about completing this effectively:
- Complete the data on a daily basis if possible 2 times per day for increased accuracy. Ideally, if you completed a specific block of activity log it
- Try not to round up to 30 minutes or an hour. You will want to record accuracy to at the least 15-minute intervals
- Activity such as clearing emails – is not very useful – needs to be more about what area of the business was the emails relating to – ie, Quotes, Complaints, etc etc
- Need to track after-hours – weekend activity as well
- As you begin to become aware of what it is you are doing – this will happen with this review process – begin to ask yourself – “Do I really need to be doing this?”
After this is complete you then create the summary of the data below. Determine the average hours per week on each activity item and then rate each activity as High, Medium, Low – referring to the value to your business and the need for YOU to be doing the activity. So it will look something like this:
Now you have the picture and will know what needs to be sorted to create independence for your business from you.
The next step is to pick the Low-value items with the largest average and target getting yourself off this activity as a priority. This will provide a systematic approach to this. You may want to apply an hourly rate next to each activity – based on what it would cost for you to get someone else to do it – and this will give you a feel for how easy it could be to begin to clear your time matrix cost-effectively.