Welcome to the first installment of our perspective series! This series is meant to give you true insight into the realities of your mind, your business and your life.
There is a commonly held belief that the first step in starting a business is to graciously bow out of your current employment and dive right in. This course of action may have been deemed necessary some time ago and might still be true for those who like to have a little more skin in the game. However, with the current economic turmoil most Americans are experiencing, why take the risk?
The unnecessary risk, fear and anxiety resulting from such actions aren’t necessary for most businesses, especially online businesses. The average person has more idle time to devote to such endeavors than they think and simply put, just need to put things into perspective.
Follow me for a second. There are twenty-four hours in a day and seven days in a week, multiply those two numbers together for a grand total of 168 hours in a week. Everyone gets the same amount of time, unless someone has invented that much coveted time machine in which case the summer of 02’ sounds nice. Seriously though, if you know that you have 168 hours a week what you do with it is obviously your choice. Let’s break this down a bit further.
A typical week:
You need sleep. 8 hours a day X 7 days a week is 56 hours. You now have 112 hours.
You need to work your full time job. 9 hours a day (1 hour lunch) X 5 days a week is 45 hours. You now have 67 hours.
Tack on your commute and now you have 65 hours.
You need to do basic things like laundry, cook and clean, socialize, etc. Follow along now; let’s say 5 days a week you spend 5 hours a day performing these tasks. After these time deductions you would have 40 hours left.
Guess what?
You have time to work another full-time job! Isn’t that so AWESOME!!!
The point to this dreadfully long subtraction equation is there is time! Time is a precious commodity that once used it can never be gained back, no matter how hard you try unless of course… you’ve invented that coveted time machine! So how are you spending your time, is it spent surfing the web, playing video games or catching up on the latest gossip?
You’re probably wondering now, how am I going to make this work? First, you have to set a goal, as in what do you actually want to accomplish? Is it starting a new website? Or is it laying the foundation for a brick and mortar store? Once you know exactly what it is, then you can start with the schedule that I listed above to achieve that goal. Attach specific times to your normal activities and subtract them out. Then identify what you are actually doing during your unproductive time.
How can you turn this unproductive time into productive time? What do you need to stop and start doing? The key is after you put together this schedule, test it. Don’t worry about sticking to it yet, they key is to find a balance between your job and your business. Once you find that happy medium then you can worry about consistency. After you’ve found that you have been consistent and have made true progress toward your goal, take a day for your sanity and do something unrelated to business or work so you can feel refreshed and rejuvenated. Afterwards, assess the current state of your schedule, create a new goal then start again!
Is working at this capacity easy? You have to ask yourself what is more important. Is putting in the time now worth living the lifestyle you want to live in a few short years or even months? Is your dream worth the sacrifice? It’s your choice but you have to make it and make it now. Time’s a wasting!
Shanea King-Roberson is the founder of Youngsuccessfulentrepreneurs.com and Co-founder and CTO of GeekFatales.com, a virtual events management company specializing in Telesalon management for authors, experts and entrepreneurs. GeekFatales is a full service agency that builds online platforms, content strategies and distribution management, so you can focus on working on your business not working in your business.
