Opinion: How to make business uncomplicated in 4 steps

In my seminars, I ask, “What one thing have you done that has made a huge difference in your life over the last year?”

One fellow raised his hand and said, “I used to write down my projects and to-dos on little scraps of paper and sticky notes. It was messy and confusing. So I started using a single notebook to write down everything I need to write down. This has helped me stay so much more organized.”

Nice. I asked how much time a day this was saving him. “Oh, maybe 10 minutes a day.” That’s more than an hour a week, 52 hours in a year and 520 hours or 13 workweeks over the course of 10 years. That’s not mentioning the savings of emotional energy, previously spent scouring through slips of paper trying to find something.

A small change can reap huge results. In the last 23 years of business building, I’ve become an expert. Here’s what I’ve learned: Business is easy. We make things too complicated. Pretty much everything I do to help my clients be more successful is to make stuff uncomplicated. Do less and achieve more. Sound good? It is! Here are a few ways to streamline and maximize results.

1. Get clear on what you want. Write your “perfect life” essay or create a vision board. Most of my clients know what they don’t want. Only a few are willing to lay claim to what they do want. When you have clarity of intention, you can say no a lot more often. That frees up tons of time and focuses your energy.

2. Raise your prices. I caught up with a past client who is still woefully underpriced. “What if you had doubled your prices 10 years ago, when we first met?” Doesn’t more money make lots of things easier? I’ve given this piece of advice more than any other in my career because this one thing will make the biggest difference in your life and for your family, team, customers and community.

3. Spend time with your employees. Ride along and sit side by side. Listen and learn. Share your vision, and ask them what they think of it. Ask them what you might do to improve your performance as a leader. Ask them what you are doing that’s getting in the way of their success. Add their ideas to your list of projects and to-dos. Engage them to solve problems and grow your business. They will.

4. Put this week’s to-dos and projects on the calendar. You can’t do everything at once, so commit to a few projects at a time. Then make sure that project time hits somebody’s calendar, yours or someone to whom you have delegated the project. Plan your week and add in meeting times, personal time (gym, dates, kids’ things) as well as your day-to-day job activities. Your calendar is your best defense against the “gotta minutes” that can suck the life out of your day.

Before you speak the words or do the activity, consider, “Is this worth my time and energy? Is this aligned with what I really want?” If not, pare it out. If it is, do it now. It’s so easy to get on the “treadmill” and unconsciously spin through another year. Try out just one of these simple disciplines, and let me know what you discover as you make it part of your life.

“The best time to plant an oak tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is today.” –Chinese Proverb

Ellen Rohr is an author and business consultant offering profit-building tips, trending business blogs and online workshops at EllenRohr.com. Her books include “Where Did the Money Go?” and “The Bare Bones Weekend Biz Plan.” She can be reached at ellen@ellenrohr.com.