What Would You Do with Five Extra Hours a Week?

What would you do with an extra five hours a week? I ask this because most entrepreneurs work 60+ hours every single week, even though we're doing this for the freedom.

(Sidenote: If you want to have tons of fun this summer but get lots of stuff done so that come fall, you can look back and say, "Wow, that was an amazing summer," and "I got a lot done" then you probably want the Summer Productivity Playbook. It's a mini course with all the things I've been doing in my own business and life to enjoy summer without falling behind and chasing my tail come fall.)

The Reality for Most Entrepreneurs

Most entrepreneurs work 60+ hours a week. I see this in people who come to me before they hire one of my VAs or start working with me as their business coach. The shocking stat is… of those 60 hours, only 20% are high-impact, high-quality, and high-income-producing activities. This is why they are working really hard, but not making the money they want.

What do I mean by these kinds of tasks? Things like managing the business, CEO visioning, cash flow activities, building relationships, following up with leads, creating new products or services, and completing any tasks that prevent you from generating your desired revenue.

The Main Questions

What would you do with those extra five hours?

What would change in your life with five more hours of freedom per week? ​

It's not just five extra hours to work more. It's five more hours of freedom that could be used for business or life.

• Could you do more of what you love?
• Get looming tasks cleared off your plate?
• Take an extended weekend?
• Have lunch with a loved one?
• Go to the doctor?
• Or use that time to bring in more clients and money?

We got into business because we're passionate about what we do and want to make an impact, but also because we want time freedom, work freedom and financial freedom. At a job, we're often capped. We can't make more without promotions or bonuses, but we can build that into our own business.

Real Success Stories

I have a client who works with one of my virtual assistants. In one of our monthly CEO meetings where we share wins and brainstorm, she said, "I got three new clients last week." I was surprised. Three in a short period was surprising.

She explained she had an idea for a funnel, but hadn't properly finished it. Her virtual assistant freed her up to develop the idea, then the VA made the whole funnel happen. They simply turned it on… email campaigns, sequences that brought leads, and she closed them. Amazing!

She gained hours by having the VA do other time-consuming tasks, gained more hours because she wasn't doing the work herself, gained three clients and more financial freedom because the funnel worked for her. It has continued to work since then, generating new leads that turn into clients and ongoing revenue.

Life's Unexpected Moments

God forbid something bad happens in your life, but I have seen five extra hours a week help other clients…

• Visit loved ones in the hospital.
• Help a neighbour out who is in a bad position and needed some help.
• Space when they have their own struggles and troubles.
• Allows them to book appointments to see a counsellor or at least just have some downtime.

One of my clients has been able to take Fridays off. Another client starts her day an hour later to focus on her own activities. That's what I often do, so I can go for a walk to get some self-care in.

What's Wasting Your Time

Let's start by identifying what things are probably wasting your time in your business. Remember, I mentioned high-impact, high-quality, and high-income-producing activities.

On the other hand, we have low-impact, low-quality, and low-income-producing activities, or no income-producing activities. These are the things that you should delegate to someone else. Someone on your team or delegated to a virtual assistant.

(Side note: we do have some openings right now for four business owners to come into Virtual Assistant Made Easy, and work directly with one of our virtual assistants that are from the Philippines, vetted, hired for you by me, already experienced and know how to do everything from your social media content creation, video/audio editing, research, tech, email and calendar management, and the list goes on and on to email campaigns and YouTube and podcasting and book publishing and course creation and PowerPoint presentations.)

Hard Truth: There are many time wasters you’re still doing yourself. It could be as simple as putting in information or adding in data. It could be that email and calendar management. Even though you're like, "Oh yeah, but it's just quick," you add up these little quick things over the course of your day, over the course of your week, over the course of your month and year, and it ends up being a ton of time.

Have a Content Creation System to Save Time

Looking at how I repurpose my content using my whole Content Multiplication Magic machine (this is something my VA Made Easy clients have access to) I record a video every week that goes on my YouTube. My VA is the ones who edit it, makes the thumbnail, puts it up on YouTube with a description, and then shares it on my social media.

The same thing goes for my podcast. My VA is the one who does all the steps. They transcribe it, put it on my blog, pull pieces of it and create social posts, then make other posts that are promoting those different things and write my newsletter.

The other BONUS is that all of these assets are my words.

Now it doesn't mean that I'm fully hands-off; I do approve them, but it is so fast compared to all the work I could be doing. Can you imagine how long this would take you? It used to be half my week. Now, my VAs do it all for me, and they do it much faster than I could ever do because they're gifted at these tasks, and they're things that they enjoy doing and have become really good at, having done them week after week.

But imagine you're still managing your email and calendar, still creating social media posts, and still scheduling them. You're still figuring out your tech. You're still doing every piece yourself. You won't get those five extra hours a week if you don’t look at what you’ll pass off.

Your Call to Action

As I mentioned, if you want those five hours back, you can join us at Virtual Assistant Made Easy to get one of our VAs, and you’ll get more time back guaranteed. Not sure what to offload or what you can gain with five hours? Do this…

Take a pen, take your favourite journal, and you're just going to write:

• What are three ways that you would use those five extra hours per week this summer?
• For summer fun, for your life, and for your business… for those high-impact, high-quality, and high income-producing activities.

Then let me know how you plan to use those five extra hours this summer and hopefully beyond, because I'm sure when other people read about them, they will say, "Ah, that's such a great idea, and I want to be able to do that too." ​

Comment below or email them to me [email protected]. You don’t have to be one of the entrepreneurs working 60+ hours a week; you can have more time freedom, more work freedom, and more financial freedom.

Until next time, stay dynamic!