This week on The Small Business Matters podcast, we tackle the labor shortage crisis through the lens of productivity with none other than Kris Ward, the powerhouse behind “Win The Hour, Win The Day.” As small business owners grapple with a lean labor market and escalating burnout, Kris brings a fresh perspective that shifts the focus from delegation to creating dynamic, self-sustaining systems for your business.
As you will hear from our interview, Kris is no stranger to life change. After suffering a personal tragedy, she fine-tuned her business to operate efficiently even in her absence. Our conversation is not just insightful; it’s filled with actionable strategies, debunking traditional delegation myths and introducing her concept of deploying ‘Super Toolkits’—a transformative approach that ensures efficiency and independence within any team.
Kris discusses how these strategies are not only about keeping your business afloat but propelling it forward to scale and thrive, allowing entrepreneurs to reclaim their time and avoid perennial burnout. Whether you’re a solopreneur or running a team, this episode will change how you view productivity and team management in a challenging economic landscape.
Watch Our Interview
Episode Highlights
- 02:07 The Problem with Delegation
- 04:19 Super Toolkits: A Game Changer
- 07:09 Avoiding Burnout: Strategies for Entrepreneurs
- 09:05 The Importance of Team and Systems
- 10:52 Daily Habits for High Productivity
- 14:50 The Power of Super Toolkits
- 17:19 Working with Kris Ward: Success Stories
- 21:00 The Profit and The Importance of Processes
- 25:58 Win The Hour Win The Day Podcast
- 29:11 Setting Long Term Goals
The following is a lightly edited transcript of our interview
Gary Stockton: In today’s hyperspeed, do it now, do it fast business climate, small business owners are faced with a growing crisis. According to Ramsey’s State of the Business Owners in America research study, a staggering 11. 3 million business owners report struggling to find capable employees to do the work they need to be done. A challenge exacerbated by rising unemployment and a persistent labor shortage. This scarcity threatens not just business performance, but the very survival of many small firms.
But an increasing number of entrepreneurs are shouldering the burden alone, spiraling into overwhelm and burnout. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Indeed there is, and her name is Kris Ward. Kris helps entrepreneurs overcome their obstacles by teaching them effective productivity strategies that enable them to scale successfully.
After suffering a personal tragedy, Kris tested her own business resilience and strategies that not only allowed her to step away, but return to a business that was fully thriving.
With accolades from Shark Tank veterans and features on global media platforms, Kris now dedicates her expertise to helping entrepreneurs like you navigate these lean labor markets. Kris, welcome to small business matters.
Kris Ward: thank you for the invitation. I have to say with your radio voice and your accent already, I feel like I’m going to say smart things just because it sounds like I, the setup sounds like I’m smart.
Gary Stockton: Oh, you know what, I took it all from your bio. I, when I heard you on the Jeff C., on, on Jeff C. ‘s podcast, about a month ago, the thing that kept ringing through my head as I listened to you was the ongoing situation in the labor market with so many small businesses struggling to fill job openings, you were talking about productivity and being able to get more done through smart systems and processes and your book and the ideas behind it, “Win the Hour, When the Day”, struck me as a really helpful resource for our listeners. Can we talk a little bit about delegation? Why do some business owners struggle with delegation?
And what advice do you have for someone struggling to delegate tasks effectively?
Kris Ward: Well, first of all, I’m going to push back a little bit because that is a word that everybody uses is delegation. And I would argue that delegation at best is a lateral move because the work still has to come through you.
So I think delegation in itself is a problem. You don’t actually want to delegate because that’s what happens is, I hear so many entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, small business owners, and founders saying “ah, I got somebody and then it ended up being more work and it was just easier for me to do it myself.”
And what happens is if you think about it, we often emulate the corporate model and we have this idea that when we grow up to be a bigger business, we’re going to use the foundation, the outline that they have, the playbook that they have, but it’s very flawed. So let’s say Gary, you were, really good at sales. You’re excellent at sales, your numbers are great. The company loves you. And then what they do is we want you to be the sales manager. We want you to teach other people how to do the sales. Let’s get Gary’s talent to multiply by 10 or 20. What happens is they remove you from sales. You’re not doing sales anymore. You’re managing the people reacting to that. And so then that formula translates into a small business and we don’t have the bandwidth for that. You’re like, no, I need time to be focusing on the real work the work that my clients pay me to do the work that brings in new revenue the marketing whatever. So I don’t have the time to be pulled off this to be managing my new VA or whoever we hire because that’s a very parentified model where it’s almost like a parent checking on a child or a teacher checking on a student.
So the whole starting point of discussion of delegation that in itself is the problem
Gary Stockton: Interesting. And it’s, delegating the right things so that you can focus on the right thing.
Kris Ward: Yeah, so, what we talk about is there’s, a lot that goes into that. When I work with my clients, we work with what we call team time and toolkits, right? So yes, I would tell you right off the bat, 90 percent of people do not know how to use their calendar effectively. That’s a problem right from the get go. We could talk about that for sure. Then I would say team is a philosophy, not a number. So you can have a team of one, but it’s how it’s set up. And a part of that setup is what we have our Signature Super Toolkits. And our Super Toolkits are like SOP standard operating procedures on steroids. So what they are is they’re dynamic breathing documents that allow for constant bandwidth and efficiency in your calendar. And what really separates them is their ease of use and how easy they are to create and adjust.
And so what happens is. Then your team member can use the super tool kit and everything becomes really, they have a job with independence and efficiency and ownership and they feel really invested in it and they’re really super excited about what they’re doing. And the super tool kit takes care of monitoring.
There’s no human error. There’s no checking on their work because anything you do, anything you do, you create a super toolkit for. So it’s one and done. It’s Oh, okay, great. And even if it’s something new, you start off let’s say, I don’t know, you’re new to doing lives on LinkedIn. You start the super toolkit. And then tomorrow you start with what you learned yesterday and go, okay, let’s add these two steps. So you’re always what we call queuing it, creating, using, and editing it. And there is a whole thing to creating these super toolkits, which what is what makes them so powerful and efficient, but it’s these basic things that create an infrastructure in the smallest business, but allows it to be efficient and allows it to go from that startup where we’re in survival mode, then, we get to, if we’re lucky stationary mode, and then we want to get to scalable mode so that we can have a business that supports our life instead of consuming it. And we’re not working crazy hours, 10 years in. so many of my clients, they look really good on paper but they’re working way too many hours for where they are at this point in their journey. And that’s why they come work with me because they’ve heard themselves say long enough, Oh, once I get past this next thing or this next thing, and there’s always a next thing. And I often say too, That if you are bouncing around thinking, once I get past this next thing, things will be different. That’s really having a car that only drives in good weather.
Gary Stockton: Yeah. Wow. Wow. And we know that’s going to long term that’s going to lead to burnout. And we could talk a little bit more about these, Super Toolkits, in the interview here. Let’s talk a little bit about, the business owners that you work with, and I’m sure you’ve, worked with a fair share of, business owners that are on the verge of burnout. How do you keep their head in the game? And how do you stay motivated to avoid burnout as a business owner?
Kris Ward: Sadly, we’re all slow learners. So, what I would say to you is most of them have gone through burnout a few times before they find me. And, I remember when my business was new and I was working insane hours, I didn’t even know what burnout was. Like, I went through it a couple of times and I just thought wow, I don’t feel like myself. Suddenly I just don’t care. Or I don’t have my usual energy of, I started self diagnosing. Is it a cold? Is it whatever? It’s not like me. So you don’t even know what it is. And then you just think, oh, okay, I just have to try harder or get it together or whatever. So that’s a whole conversation on its own. So really, my clients tell me all the time that working with me within the first month, they get 25 hours back a week.
Now that seems like a bold promise, but the sad thing is they’re working so many hours. If you take Tuesday and Thursday evening out and then Sunday, you get a lot of hours. And I would also argue so many times people are working and they’re not counting it as work. Oh, I go in on Sundays to get ahead of my emails, but that’s not really work.
Oh, Tuesdays I stay late because I’m taking this course, but that’s not really work. You know what? You’re not at the beach it’s work. And so that’s a problem there. So yeah, the burnout is a real serious thing and it doesn’t have to be that way because here’s the thing. We hear all these stories all the time about, oh my gosh, the heroes or the people that are making all these millions of dollars are so kind to tell us on social media. And they talk about when they started, they’re working these crazy hours and they’re sleeping on the floor and doing all this stuff.
Gary Stockton: The grind.
Kris Ward: What they don’t tell you, the most important part of that story, what they do not ever talk about is when their life and their business turned around and the business started taking off and they started making money. That’s when they did get a team and that’s when they did put systems in play. That is the story, but it’s not, it doesn’t have any juice. It doesn’t have any glory to it. It doesn’t have any drama. So what they don’t talk about is when the change happened is when things really turned around for them is when they started putting things in play, like their team, their time and the toolkits.
So we’re following this false premise that working hard, I know for a long time, I remember saying to my mother, who knew I’d have to learn not to work so hard. That is the best thing you could say about anybody, right? I think it trumps being smart because it’s like, she’s a hard worker, like her character, she’ll, go until the job’s done.
So it’s the whole my, it’s the whole concept of that’s, if you’re working so hard and you’re so busy, somehow it’s just going to sort itself out, but it’s not going to. That’s how you get feast or famine. You get a few new clients, you get really busy, and then you’re too busy with the being busy, and then you lose a client or two, and then you’re back to famine, and the cycle continues.
Gary Stockton: Yeah. Wow. That’s, it’s interesting how, and I would say, yes, if you’re an entrepreneur, if you’re particularly a solopreneur, there’s probably that worry when you get to those, famine stages that you’ve got to double down and sleep on the factory floor. take it to extremes.
I like to do a daily exercise every day. I like to get up nice and early and get at least three or four miles walking in and clear my head. What daily habits do you consider essential for maintaining high productivity?
Kris Ward: I do believe in treating yourself like a business athlete. So how can you make yourself physically your best version of you? Because that’s again where we go wrong. We start, when you’re working insane hours, listen, let me back up for a second. When I started my business 14 plus years ago, I started out, we were focused on market messaging. And the first couple of years I was in business, I worked insane hours.
I was like, my husband said I was always stealing from sleep, getting up earlier and earlier, staying later and later. And I’d be here to tell you that when you work those crazy hours and you start running around doing things, for the first time in my life, I stopped exercising. I wasn’t eating well.
If you’re answering emails with one hand and you’re multitasking and doing all this foolishness, you’re not shoving a salad down your throat with your left hand. you’re eating something that’s quick and not good for you. I was told about the two year mark that I was starting to lose some of my charm.
I was like, oh, this cannot be. Here is, my husband’s my biggest cheerleader and I’m now short tempered because I’m exhausted all the time. So I literally went from working 16 hours a day down to six. Now that did not happen overnight. That’s a whole story on its own. But luckily I did cause it was a couple of years after that, that my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer and I was pulled away from the business for about two years.
When I returned after his passing, my existing clients had no idea of my absence. It was just not how we navigated his journey. We were very positive in nature. And so they started to come to me and say if you could do that, like, how could we have not known your way? If you could do that, then maybe you could help me get to my kids soccer games and things like that. So we started working with them with their team, their time and the toolkits. And that’s when I realized so many of the clients that needed me most, were either small business owners, entrepreneurs, or even corporate people with teams that were just. they looked good on paper, but they’re still putting in too many hours.
So that’s a, huge component of that. And so I know for me, when I started getting back to some sort of healthy routine and getting enough sleep at night, Oh my God, I don’t think there’d be wars if we all slept. So, sleeping for me, it’s fitness in the morning. I work out in the morning for me.
It’s also having hobbies. I rock climbing now I’m kayaking and doing these different things. I treat myself like a business athlete. We know that Olympians or anybody else, whatever their role of significance, they take care of themselves for their best performance. And more than anything, you need your brain for the nature of your work.
You’re a knowledge worker. You have to show up. And when you’re hung over from being exhausted, you don’t have the best resources. So, whatever it is that you find, takes care of you, you have to put those parameters in place to treat yourself like a business athlete.
Gary Stockton: Great advice. and I put sleep up there, in, the top priority. I actually got a full eight hours last night and I, for this interview, I feel so alert and ready for it. and I’ve done podcast interviews on maybe four or five and it’s just not, it just, you don’t feel your best. And also. You, there’s a, I noticed a reluctance to just take on more, it’s the, it, the knock on effect for me is a little bit of procrastination, putting things off to the next day. So for me, yes, I agree with you. Sleep.
Let’s talk about the book. When the hour, when the day. Tell us about it.
Kris Ward: Again, that came from realizing that the people that needed me most were not going around explaining like, they’re not putting it online, that they need help. ’cause part of them didn’t understand that they even needed help.
So what I would say is if you hear yourself say, once I get past this next thing. Ding, ding, ding, ding, that’s a warning sign. Because there is always the next thing, and there’s always going to be something. I know for us, I remember a couple of years ago, we had somebody that had worked with us for years, my social media manager, and she, long story short, it was when the lockdowns were coming off and all this kind of craziness in the world.
And she had applied years before that to go to Canada from the Philippines to be an International student. So she was given like two weeks notice. Oh my gosh. Okay. I got accepted. Now, the funny part of that story is she wanted to stay on with us. I’m like, you can’t go to college full time and work full time with us. It’s just not going to work. But the nature of how we run our teams and our clients teams, The turnover is we’ve got a 90 percent retention rate with our hiring process because we do find hire and onboard, for any of our clients, just because we want to get to the real work. So we don’t want the learning curve of you having to find your own virtual assistant or whatever.
So, we do that, but we’ve got this 90 percent retention rate and they stay a really long time because they’re so invested when the setup is done differently, right? Now we found a new person to come in and do that job. And she was up to capacity within, I don’t know, the next week because we had these Super Tool Kits.
So almost think of it like a carpenter. If you had to hire a carpenter for your, let’s say you made tables as a company. You don’t need to teach them how to be a carpenter. You just need to say, “Hey, here’s how we do it. Here’s the specs to this table.” And so you can have really simple things in play like that. So you’re not, susceptible to every little hiccup, every little problem, every little thing in your business. And that’s the difference. That’s when you have a business versus being at best self employed and you’re bouncing around all over the place. It just, you never get to the real work because you’re always reacting.
Gary Stockton: That’s really smart. 90 percent retention. that’s admirable. and, so, you work with companies, let’s spell it out here. You work with entrepreneurs and companies. Do you find them the help to, keep these, processes. running, make them more productive. You use super tool kits, you build them. they’re bespoke for those businesses. And, if there are any changes in the team, it’s no problem because you’ve got the infrastructure set up for that company to continue and grow, because I’m sure you’re looking to expand businesses as well, right?
Kris Ward: Yeah, so absolutely. So yeah, we work with small business owners, coaches, consultants, whatever. And then we deal with also corporations that may come to us with, say, I have a team of 10, whatever. Sometimes they have different units within the corporation. And As one of the services that we provide we will find hire on board virtual assistants or admin teams for them. We do work with someone’s existing team for sure.
But we’re not an agency in that capacity. Why I say that is because agencies tend to go out and then they find somebody for you but you’re not set up for them so even if they find a great virtual assistant, you don’t know how to run a scrum meeting or how to create leadership or how to don’t just dump what we call dump dismiss or delegate to them those the 3D. So that doesn’t work at all and the turnover is high and we’re also not looking for billable hours So agencies, you could find it if let’s say I was wrong on everything you find this amazing virtual assistant and it all works out, you have to stay for two three years and then if you end your contract with that agency you lose your VA. As well, the virtual assistant has to sign a non disclosure agreement. So, you might be thinking you’re paying them $5 or $6 U.S. dollars an hour and you’re paying them $2, right? So we don’t do any of that. We just find it because we want to get to the real work.
And so we’ll help you with that. And then we’ll show you later how to do that for yourself. So we often do things for you for speed or with you for independence. So that’s one of the bonuses of working with us, but you’re right. Then we help them not only, provide Super Toolkits for them, but show you how to build your own because it’s a breathing document because what you probably know, but sometimes it’s hard to recognize when it’s your own business. It’s like when I wrote my book, Oh my gosh, when I was done, I thought there’d be like a parade in my honor. Okay, the book is done. Sound the drum, the drums, whatever you start the parade. Then I had to pitch to be on podcasts and to promote the book. And then I needed time to be on those podcasts and doing the speaking gigs and all this stuff. So there’s always whatever got you here will not get you there. And there’s whatever exciting project you just completed just creates more work. So then you have to be able to have things like the Super Toolkit and an effective, what we call a Win Team, a What Is Next team so that you can get to what is next and find more bandwidth on your calendar to do more things.
There’s always the next thing. So you have to be able to, you have to be able to constantly move forward, not get stuck in the repetitive admin work, busy work.
Gary Stockton: Win team. What is next? I like that. Podcast listeners, you’re going to want to hit rewind and mark that. there’s a great show I like watching called Restaurant Impossible. And one of the themes that seems to be pretty constant is. The business owner who lets the accounting and bookkeeping go, how would you coach the chef that doesn’t have time to keep his accounts in order?
Kris Ward: You know what? Oh my gosh, there’s a show I used to love called The Profit and he, it was very similar to that where he went into businesses of all different levels that were struggling. And here’s the funny part, sometimes they were businesses that were bringing in like $10 million a year, and yet they were in debt. And he focused very similar to me on product, people, product and process. And 80 percent of the time, it was just, they didn’t have the processes in play, right? They’re just ad hoc one thing after the next. And they’re, And what people don’t understand is you think when you are a smaller business, or even if you have a smaller team in a corporation, you think, once we get out of this thing, or once we start making this amount of sales, somehow these processes are going to magically fall into play.
But, they don’t because you never had them. So they’re not going to evolve and grow because there’s nothing. You might as well go out and water cement. There’s no plant in there to grow. And that’s the foolish thing that we all have this concept of. Once I get high, I know I thought that once I get higher up the mountain, then as I do the climb, then I’ll get the team in play and I’ll get these things in play. You don’t get up the mountain. You just slip and slide back and you won’t get there. You don’t get to build the team when you get there because there’s no getting there without the team, without the processes. And so that’s what I would, if people would just understand that.
The only complaint I get from my clients is they’ll say oh my gosh, why did I not find you sooner? Why were you not louder? So many of them one I often talk about is Kristine. She had come to us And she was a referral and one of my previous clients had recommended her and I’m not saying this is okay, but it happens. She missed the first, our strategy call and a lot of people I deal with, their hair’s on fire. They’re running around like crazy person. They need me. I’m not saying it’s okay, but sometimes they miss the first appointment. So she’s I’m so sorry. And we made another appointment. Well she missed the second one. I’m like, all right, who’s the fool I’m out. And she begged me to meet with her a third time. And so I did. And cause she was a referral and all this other stuff. So we met and she said, Kris, I don’t know how you can help me. Cause she helped $5 – $10 million companies set up systems to sell their business. And she goes, I help them with systems. There’s just too much work to do. And they, so many clients will come to me and say, there’s just too much work to do. I just need more time. And I’m here to tell you, you don’t need more time. You just need better results. She would be the person I have clippings on my website and LinkedIn from actual conversations with her. Not even her just doing a scheduled testimonial just raw conversation with her and she would say Oh my gosh. First of all, her income went up four times since she started working with us. Her hours went down to one fifth of what she was working. She, within the year, went to Costa Rica for a month with no wi fi and the VA we found for her ran the business. I mean, that’s huge.
And that’s the thing, is what people don’t understand. Sometimes the thing that I think is the saddest thing to hear at all is somebody will say to me, I really want to work with you, but I can’t afford it right now. And our fees are very affordable. Why they can’t afford, it’s not because of my fees. It’s because you are never going to make more money. When you are caught up in all the pre and post work to what you do, all the busy work, all the admin work. It’s if you had a small cafe and you’re trying to be the chef. And then you’re also being the hostess, or you also have to go get the groceries. And you’re also going out and trying to get flyers and stick them on cars. And you’re trying to do all these things. How much more money could you be making if you were in the kitchen, just banging out the food and then somebody else is bringing in the customers and just like the volume would be night and day, right? You cannot do all those things and think somehow you’re going to make more and more money. You just can’t. It just doesn’t work.
Gary Stockton: I’m a big fan of The Profit too. Marcus Lemonis. yeah. Great show.
Kris Ward: yes.
Gary Stockton: And he, I’ve said this before, we’ve talked about The Profit, He’s able to have very clear, cogent, conversations with the, these business owners and lay it all out there, where, their weaknesses are, where their strengths are, and even in the organization of businesses, if it’s a manufacturing type company, it’s obvious to him the flow where they need to re situate equipment and get things working more productively. Great show. But you, another great show is you have a podcast. What’s it called? and what kind of things do you talk about there?
Kris Ward: Yeah. On the podcast, Win The Hour Win The Day podcast, you know what, we actually talk about anything from sales to social media. We don’t really focus on this. And why? Because so many people, I find that like fitness podcasts, the people who are already fit listen to them for better tips, right? So again, the people I that need my help the most don’t understand it’s a systems issue.
They think that they just have to work harder because the problem with most of my clients is they’re the go-to person for most people in their life. They’re the one that gets the most done. So then they just think there’s more to do. So my show, it’s just generic business stuff to help you get your next win now. It’s really fun for me to meet amazing people and things like that. But what I really want people to understand is if you understand that. First of all, it’s really not about time management. It’s learning how to use your calendar and energy management. That’s a game changer. Energy management over time management and understanding that, a team is it’s your biggest asset, and as we talked about those super toolkits, it’s really like thinking about, let’s say, I had houseplants and I was like, Oh my gosh, you know what? I’ve never had plants before, Gary, I went to the store and I got a couple of houseplants and after a few weeks I thought, I’m really loving this. This is fantastic. They’re growing. It makes me feel good about myself. And after a little bit of time, I think, you know what, maybe this is my new thing. I am actually, what I’m going to do is I’m going to, I think I’m gonna have a business where I start a farm or a nursery. And what I would ask you to think about is. What would be the difference between the house plants and that farm or nursery? And it’s just infrastructure. So, on the left hand side, if you had in your hand a house plant, most businesses go like from three plants to say five and then one dies off and you have to go get another one and very interesting parallel to clients and you just, you never really get past that.
But if you’re going to have a nursery or a farm, think of that something that you visualize to the right. What’s it’s the infrastructure you put the right infrastructure in play and you can easily yield a hundred or a thousand plants And it’s going to be done simultaneously, very easily, very effective, but why? Because of that infrastructure.
But also don’t confuse that infrastructure is something that is going to limit you. That’s another thing. People will come to me all the time. You don’t understand my work. It’s very creative. And I’m like, great, then you need this more because if you think you can be creative running in and out of things on your to do list, that’s not how the brain works. And science will show us that, right? You cannot. You, all the best inventions in humankind were done in times of relaxation and play and you cannot rush creativity or jam it in at the end of the day when you think you’ve got a bunch of, okay, I got all the crisis is over, let me now be creative. So that’s the other thing is these things will free you, not limit you.
Gary Stockton: Yeah, that’s a great point. And I love that energy management, overtime management, great one. How important is setting long term goals for productivity? And how do you break them down into manageable steps?
Kris Ward: So that’s very interesting to me. Cause I had that conversation with just one of my clients the other day, and here’s my pet peeve with goals. I find that people defer to goals, when they feel frustrated in present day. So for example, she was getting frustrated with something she’s new to working with us. And she was like, Oh, my team, they’re not doing this, not doing that. And there’s a whole conversation about that. She’s, she doesn’t have the ability, she’s new working with us. So she doesn’t have the leadership thing set up yet. She doesn’t know how to communicate with them. There’s a whole bunch of problems that people don’t understand. You hire someone and then you magically think that they’re just going to be able to read your mind and do all these things, right?
So she’s I think we need to set up some quarterly goals. And I’m like, okay, let’s talk about that. You’re saying you can’t get them to do what you want to do this week. So now we’re going to set up goals. All you’re doing in my mind is moving the deadline, right? So that I won’t be frustrated about it.
I think for most people, we know the difference between a wish and a goal is a deadline, but what makes this goal, how are you going to get, that’s like me saying, okay, you know what? I want to by Christmas lose, you know, whatever, 50 pounds, although people, I don’t actually have 50 pounds to lose because I feel the need to defend myself.
But anyhow, somebody says, I need to lose 50 pounds. If I need to lose 50 pounds by Christmas, great. Do you have a strategy? That’s a goal. What’s the plan? So one of the things I would say I talk about is working backwards. We do this in our personal life, we don’t realize we do this. Let’s say, Gary, you have to be you know, at the in laws what, Saturday at 1 o’clock for somebody’s birthday, and you think, okay, they’re an hour away. That’s noon. Okay. And then we’re going to, so you start working backwards in your day. So we need to get up and leave. We need to get up and get going at 10 a. m. to be there at 1pm because I want to do these things along the way. So when I wrote my book, I found out from my editor for her to do the editing, she needed it by June or she couldn’t do it till September.
So I worked backwards and I figured out, Oh, Hey, I have to do five pages per day, Monday to Friday to get this to her by June because I did the math. It’s going to be about a hundred pages. Here we go. The old me and so many of us would jump up and say, okay, I’m going to write every day at the end of the day, whatever. And there was some days that I was, first of all, let me back up for a sec. Do the work that requires the most attention or focus first thing in the morning because your brain is freshest. There’s a whole bunch of science. Also, when you come back to the same task at the same time every day. boom, boom. And then also when you go into emails, there’s decision fatigue and attention residue. So you want to be doing the most important work that requires the most attention or focus first thing in the morning. Okay. So now there is times where I was like, Oh, I don’t know if I’ve got it. I don’t know if I have five pages in me today, whatever. I’m tired. I’m this. I’m that. The old me would be like, Oh, that’s okay. I won’t do it today, but tomorrow I’m just going to come back rested. The pages will fly off the computer. But when you work backwards, a first thing I’d have to do is say, okay, if I don’t have five pages in me today. Will I have 10 in me tomorrow?
That sobers you up real quick, but it also shows you really quickly, let’s say I wasn’t well today and I didn’t come into work. Then I know when I’m off course, instead of this ambiguous, Oh, I want to get a book out this year or by summer or whatever. So what I would say about the goal you asked about is too many of us business owners or even corporate managers, whatever, you have a new assignment or new project or new client that you’re excited about, and you jump all in guns a blazing only then other things resurface later that you like neglected. Cause you don’t again have these things on your calendar, but you didn’t have a plan of working backwards to see where this work would fit.
You can’t just make this your new thing up until midweek. trying to get all this stuff done. And then the novelty of that wears off. So I find working backwards helps a lot.
Gary Stockton: Kris, this has been so helpful. I really got a lot out of that. Tell our audience where they can find you and how best to start a conversation.
Kris Ward: Yeah. So you can say that you heard me on this fantastic podcast. I hang out a lot on LinkedIn. So send me a DM, do whatever you need to do to get my attention and we will become fast friends. And you can also check out. freegiftfromkris.com, that’s free. freegiftfromkris.com. We’ve got a couple of goodies in there. People get a lot of insight from our biz personality quiz. I have found after years of working with entrepreneurs, they fall into one of five categories. I myself am a recovering rush a holic, so you get a customized result within seconds. People find that very enlightening, but for your audience, Gary, I put something special in there. I put a free version, a free audio version of my book and it won’t be up there very long. So grab it quickly, but you can grab that and, learn something while you drive.
Excellent. Thanks so much for coming on Small Business Matters, Kris.
