When The Clock’s Ticking But Nobody’s Paying You

Last week I went to a meeting that was a ‘CWOT’. A Complete Waste Of Time.

Travel time + lost time = frustration.

If I was working as an executive at an organisation and on somebody else’s payroll, this would still be frustrating. But when you work for yourself, it’s more painful - after all, nobody pays you to turn up at meetings.

In ‘Juggle!’ I talk about the importance of managing time and getting value from *all* you do. I don’t just mean a hard financial return, I mean value: whether you took time out to enjoy a movie, or you enjoyed a coffee. That’s still value. But when you didn’t even enjoy the train ride, that’s a waste of time.

You won't always know in advance the relationships that will be fruitful and those that will just waste time. There’s no guaranteed criteria you can apply, no iPhone app that will work out the answer for you. Because where randomness and serendipity play such a role in growing your business, you never can tell it might be useful until you show up. You just have to trust your instinct; sometimes you’ll get right, others not.

So make sure you think about how you carve up your working day. Being self-employed in ‘biz dev’ mode is a bit like being a taxi driver but never sure whether your passenger will pay until you get to the destination...