When I speak to business owners, I find that some of them fall into a trap of being busy, but not financially productive. It’s easy to fill our days up with small ‘$5 tasks’ but these tasks don’t lead to business growth or financial success. They just keep us busy!
That’s why I like to structure my day around the ‘$50 task theory.’ The theory is about looking at the tasks that you have on your list and categorising them into $5 tasks, $50 tasks, $500 tasks and $5000 tasks. Now a $5 task is something like cleaning your desk. It’s nice to have a clean desk, but it’s really not going to bring in any new clients today. Plus you have to do a whole lot of $5 tasks in order make your quota for that day.
In comparison a $5000 task is something like sitting with a client and closing them up making a sale. You see the difference between the two right? The key to getting more out of your day is really focussing on the tasks that only you can do (the higher value tasks) and eliminating some of the lesser $5 tasks.
So, here’s how to get started with the $50 Task Theory.
1. Identify Your Tasks
In order to get this $50 task theory working in your everyday, you’ll need to identify the tasks that you are doing. Now, you might already have a list of tasks that you need to be working on. But a great way to identify what you are spending your time on is to track what you are doing in a given week. At the end of every hour, write down what you did. Then at the end of the week you will have a list of everything that you did in that week.
2. Categorise Your Tasks
After you’ve got your list of tasks, go through each of them and identify whether they are a $5 task, $50 task, $500 task or $5000 task. In this way you will be clear on what you are spending most of your time on. Don’t worry if you find that you’ve got mostly $5 tasks. Most people find that too!
3. Eliminate Your $5 Tasks
Now that you have identified what all of the tasks that you have to do are worth, try as much as you can to eliminate the $5 tasks. Quite frankly, there are probably just some things you should stop doing altogether. Cross all of them off. Then any other $5 tasks you have left, try to delegate. If you have staff, you should be getting your staff to do the majority of these. If you don’t have staff, start to build a team of people around you, whether it’s a VA, or other trusted advisors and get these $5 tasks off your list.
4. Work on The Big Rocks First
Now that you are looking at your $50 tasks and above it’s tempting to start with the easy things first (you know, the $50 tasks, but before you go and start smashing out those tasks, pick the one $5000 task that is going to make a difference in your day and do that first. Prioritise that one $5000 task, before you start on lesser tasks. Cause it’s much easier to put that big rock in your day FIRST, and fit smaller rocks around. Rather than putting a whole heap of small rocks in your day and then trying to fit the big one in.
By working this way, you’ll find that you’re not only more productive, but your business will be growing more than when you were working on $5 tasks all day!
