PP 339: Carve Out Time to Do What YOU Do Best

Kim Sutton: In today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about how we need to Carve Out Time To Do What We Do Best. And before I get into this, I need to put the disclaimer in that I’m going to be putting a little bit of a jab towards my husband just because it’s a regular funny occurrence, that when he does activities that we know I should be doing, that I usually have to go back and do them again. 

Now, my husband is an amazing man, and he does so many things better than me. But there are two activities, at least for our house that he should not be partaking in, those are grocery shopping and taking the kids to the doctor. Now, I’m not saying that these are activities that I want to be doing myself, but there’s a parallel in our business as well. There are activities that we should be doing and not be delegating to other people. Because often, we’ll have to redo them. But on the flip side, there are definitely activities that we should not be doing because somebody else will have to do them again. 

For example, in my house, when I cook, it’s never a good thing. And there have been multiple occasions when my husband has remade a meal that I have burned. Now, we know you might find it ridiculous that I am that bad at cooking, but I am, and I am not ever going to hide it. Cooking is not something that I enjoy doing so I don’t put my attention there. And that’s how often is in those activities that I should be delegating elsewhere. For example, the podcast. In the past, there were times the episodes didn’t go out on schedule because I was trying to do it all myself. There were other activities that I needed to handle. And in the end, the podcast got pushed aside rather than having somebody else do it. That’s all been taken care of now, and I have an awesome editor, Leng. So that is off my list. 

But going back into my house, grocery shopping and doctor’s appointments. Again, I love my husband dearly. But when it comes to taking my three littles to the doctor, every single time that my husband has done it, it required major cleanup work for lack of a better expression from me afterwards. My kids are in daycare, and there are specific forms that my husband has been told that he needs to take with him to the doctor. But every single time, he either forgets the forms at home, or he forgets to get them filled out by the doctor that requires phone call after phone call from me to the doctor’s office to get them to fax the form to the daycare. And unfortunately, the daycare fax machine doesn’t work. So in the end, it requires a trip to the doctor’s office to actually pick up the form. Because my husband works retail, often from open to close, I am the one who is available. Or maybe I just say quote available to actually go pick up the forms. By the way, if anybody wants to be a personal assistant and lives in my vicinity, please contact me through my website. I would love for you to be able to help me out with tasks like this. 

The same goes for grocery shopping, though. I will give my husband a list of things that we need at the grocery store, and he will go he will forget the list in the car. And he’ll come home with a completely different list. And his list includes things like cookies and things that won’t prepare more than one meal. He’ll come home with dinner for that night. But when it comes to the rest of the week, I have to go back again.

What I need to do and what so many of us need to do is just block out the time to actually handle activities like grocery shopping. I know that in just 15 minutes, I could go online, place my whole order, and then my husband could just go to the drive thru at the grocery and pick it up. There would be no question about us having all the groceries for the whole week be in our refrigerator within a half hour of him getting there. But my not blocking out those 15 minutes prevents that from happening. Listeners, yes, I know my husband could go online, but we don’t need all the junk that he would add to the virtual cart. Start looking at all the activities that you, your team, your significant other, your kids, etc are doing in both your personal and professional life, and evaluate what you need to do to be most efficient and effective with your time. Block those activities out on your calendar and make those a non negotiable time block. Stop canceling those activities. Because in the end, it will cost you more to cancel than it would have just to do the activity yourself in the first place. 

Now, with all this said, go forth and make it a positive and productive day.