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Conquering Your Everest

Mount Everest is the greatest challenge for anyone in the climbing community. In a sport defined by conquering the highest peaks across the globe, Everest is the pinnacle, a behemoth of rock, snow, and ice, standing 29,031 ft above sea level. Reaching the summit is the ultimate success, but for most people, it feels unattainable, a step (excuse the pun!) too far.

Business owners face challenges every day, simple bumps in the road or small peaks that need ascending on the way to the summit of Everest.

But what is your Everest?

What does ultimate success look like for your business?

And how can you conquer it?

These questions apply to organisations of all sizes and help inform strategy, formulate action plans, and highlight gaps in knowledge. In order to reach the summit, you need to focus on delivering the correct actions, those that are most impactful. Reviewing the business and the path it is taking up the mountain becomes more challenging in a smaller organisation. After all, there are fewer people to complete tasks. And for sole traders, it feels impossible as you are tied up in the day-to-day operation.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are three practical techniques business leaders can adopt to make the path to the summit a little easier.

Is it Urgent? Is it Important?

By asking yourself these two questions about everything you do in your business tasks naturally fall into these four categories:

Important, But Not Urgent – You need to be scheduling these in your diary to make sure they get done and don’t fall into...

Important And Urgent – A list of tasks that must get done, but reference technique #2 to make it more efficient.

Not Important, But Urgent – Tasks that are delegated to someone else. A little harder for sole traders, but technique #3 will help with that.

Not Important, Not Urgent – Delete Them, Dump Them, or Do It Last. These activities or tasks are of no benefit, so don’t waste anyone’s time prioritising them. 

Avoid the To-Do List Trap

Everyone loves a ‘to-do’ list and the feeling of achievement that comes from completing a task on it. But there is one problem, as you remove one job another three appear. Finishing your list is like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. You can never reach it.

A ‘must-do’ list is different. It’s a finite list of tasks that you must do that day. From technique #1, these are important and urgent jobs. Start with five tasks, jobs, or activities, and write your list for the following day at the end of the current one. Everything is fresh in your memory, meaning you prioritise more effectively. You will be surprised how this simple technique will make time spent on your business more fulfilling. 

Organise Your Business

Every business should have an organisational chart, regardless of size. Yes, even a sole trader. Why? Because it allows you to map the tasks required to run the business to the relevant people. You can then effectively delegate from the urgent and not important quadrant from technique #1. Essentially, creating job descriptions for everyone, at every level, in all departments.

The trap smaller businesses and sole traders often fall into is to only include the people working directly for the organisation. They ignore sub-contractors, those people completing tasks on their behalf. In the case of a sole trader, this could be a virtual assistant, accountant, or social media specialist, all working for the business, just not on the payroll.

Setting clear objectives, expectations, and task lists for these third-party suppliers will allow you to concentrate on building your business rather than completing the daily tasks.

It is now time to conquer your Everest and build a healthy, successful, and sustainable business.

At Fuelled Fit and Fired Up, our purpose is simple. We want to help you develop a healthy, successful, and sustainable business. If you are interested in finding out how we can unleash the power in your business, helping you conquer your Everest in the process, then contact us at info@fuelledfitandfiredup.com.

David Rogers, Founder & CEO of Fuelled, Fit and Fired Up

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