If you’ve ever wondered why no planner, calendar, or productivity system seems to give you more time, this episode explains why.
Ann Rusnak introduces the concept of time leveraging and shows how it differs from traditional time management. Instead of treating every task as equally important, you’ll learn why a small percentage of your activities creates most of your results—and how recognizing the difference can change the way you work.
Drawing from her own recovery from burnout and the lessons she learned from the 80/20 Principle, Ann shares the simple exercise that became the foundation of her time leveraging approach.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why time management eventually stops working for many established business owners.
- What time leveraging means and how it changes the way you think about your day.
- How the 80/20 Principle applies to your business, your time, and your life.
- Why not every activity deserves the same amount of your time and attention.
- The simple rating system Ann used during her recovery from burnout.
- How identifying high reward, high profit, low reward, and low profit activities helped her accomplish more while working less.
- The first step you can take today to start leveraging your time.
Mentioned in This Episode
- The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch
- Bottleneck of Stuff Syndrome (BOSS)
- Burnout Breakthrough Method
- Four-Zone Activity Framework (coming in a future episode)
Learn more about the Four-Zone Activity Framework at BurnoutBreakthroughMethod.com
Sailing to Unstoppable Success Community
https://sailingtounstoppablesuccess.substack.com/
Transcript
In episode four, Why Time Management Quits Working, I asked the question, if time management isn't the solution to gaining more time, what is the answer? Well, I mentioned time leveraging, and promised I would go into much greater detail in today's episode.
Hey there, Ann Rusnak here, host of the Sailing to Unstoppable Success Podcast for busy, established women entrepreneurs.
Once your successful business reaches the bottleneck of stuff syndrome, time becomes your most valuable asset. The mistake most business owners make is treating every activity as though it deserves the same amount of time and attention. It doesn't.
And before we go any further, let's define time leveraging, and while it sounds nice, it's one of those phrases that lands in your brain as fuzzy and vague.
In simplest terms, it means using your time on activities that create the biggest results, which also translated to working less often.
While recovering from burnout, I began looking closely at everything I did before I collapsed from exhaustion. I was laying in bed most of the time, so this was a great opportunity to really just start taking inventory of every activity I did.
And I noticed they naturally fell into three areas:
Business, personal, which is your family, social time and me. You know, that time for yourself that just happens to disappear as your business grows?
Around the same time, I discovered The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. Now, that book helped me understand why I burnt out and why time management never solved the problem in the first place.
The 80/20 principle says a small percentage of your actions creates most of your results and your happiness.
Think about it, 20% of your clothes get worn 80% of the time.
20% of your movies get watched 80% of the time.
20% of your products usually generate 80% of your revenue.
Same thing with your clients, 20% of them are generating that revenue.
Once you start looking, you see this principle everywhere.
Now, time management treats every activity as equal. The 80/20 principle showed me they weren't. As I reviewed my activity list, I began rating everything high reward, high profit, low reward, low profit. And for the first time, I can clearly see which activities move my business and my life forward.
While recovering from burnout, I could only work 15 minutes at a time, so it was important that I knew exactly where to focus. Those few activities helped save my business. I accomplished more while working less. My revenue also increased.
Over time, I noticed patterns in those ratings, and those patterns eventually became the four-zone activity framework that I still use today and teach my clients.
We'll dive into that framework in another episode.
But for now, I want you to remember one thing.
Time management asks, "How can I fit more activities into this hour?"
Time leveraging asks, "Which activity will create the biggest result?"
Time management measures how much you can get done. It focuses on the quantity of what you're doing,
Time leveraging measures what your work actually produces. It's focusing on the quality of that activity.
It's a completely different way of thinking.
And you don't need to change everything you do tomorrow. Just start looking at today's activities differently.
Instead of asking how long something took, ask yourself, "What did it produce? Were these the results I wanted? Did it make me happier? Did it make my life easier?" You may discover that a handful activities created most of your progress, while others simply filled your day.
Now, that's where time leveraging begins.
And here's another great thing about time leveraging: You don't need a fancy planner to make it work, or fancy apps.
Now, if you can't wait to learn more about this four-zone activity framework, you can visit BurnoutBreakthroughMethod.com.
But for now, start creating your own activity list. Just keep it simple. As you do something, just write it down in a spiral notebook. That's pretty much what I did.
Throughout the week, rate each activity as a high reward, a high profit, low reward, or low profit. You may be surprised, just like I was. I discovered far more low-reward, low-profit activities than I ever imagined, and those were the same exact activities that were draining both my time and energy.