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Whether your business is small or large, the last thing you want to do is discover you’ve been spinning your wheels when you don’t have to. If you want to grow faster (or just have a saner time running your existing business), then you owe it to yourself to hold a regular strategy session at least once a week.

It’s Not As Hard As You Think

A good strategy session doesn’t have to take long - it could literally be a lunchtime appointment you set with yourself once a week to just stop, breathe, and think about how you want to tweak your way of working for the next seven days. Here are three food-for-thought questions you could ask yourself during your weekly strategy session:

• What events/obstacles stole valuable, billable time away from me this week?
  Things happen during the week that suck time away from you doing the things you got into business to do. Don’t let these things “just happen.” Isolate what they are (whether it’s a failed hard drive or a meeting that spiraled out too long) and plan ways to avoid this moving forward.
• What’s non-billable, “routine” tasks am I spending a lot of time on?
  You have a certain billable rate that you can get from clients. If you’re spending time on other activities required to run your business, and you can get someone else to do them for less money than you could make if you billed those hours out, than you need to consider making that happen. Sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s an easy mistake to make when you’re in the heat of the moment with a busy business.
• What strategic tasks have I been procrastinating on?
  Chances are there a few things you already know would make a strategic difference for your business … but you just haven’t gotten around to doing them because you’ve just been “too busy.” Well, what if you decided that you weren’t going to accept that as an excuse? Push yourself to start putting those smart ideas you’ve already come up with into practice; grab a calendar and a pen and carve that time out so it gets done.

What’s Your Bright Idea?

What’s one of the greatest strategic tips that has changed your business for the better (and freed you up for more billable time)? Take 60 seconds to share your genius with us in the comments below.

Keep on rocking,

Dave

Dave Navarro is Freelance Folder’s Get-More-Done expert. Learn how to double your productivity in the next seven days by grabbing his free time management guide right here.