How to invest 5 minutes today to get a real return in your business
An Overwhelming List of Micro-Tasks
Ashley started work today with a To-Do list a mile long.
She’s got time blocked on her schedule for focused work, so she’s confident she’ll do the big stuff (like running the staff meeting and finishing a client deliverable), but just like every day, she’s also got a long list of micro-tasks in the back of her mind. Each one might just take a few minutes, but there’s never going to be enough hours in a day to get them all done.
Things like:
☐ Answer routine emails
☐ Follow up on an outstanding invoice
☐ Have a short but difficult conversation to give critical feedback to an employee
☐ Book coffee with a new professional connection
☐ Wade through administrative paperwork
☐ Actually start the business book she bought months ago
☐ And a hundred other small things, with more added to the list every day
While Ashley is busy every day, her task list is growing rather than shrinking, and she’s feeling increasingly overwhelmed.
For most business owners, the cost of doing a micro-task (i.e. their time and attention) might outweigh the immediate benefit of getting it done, making it easy to put it off. Sure, these little things are easy to do, but they’re equally easy not to do – they can just as easily be dealt with tomorrow.
The Paradox of Productivity
There’s a paradox in most productivity advice. We’re told to focus on getting the most important things done: “Don’t major in minor things”, just concentrate on a few important things each day…. But at the same time, we’re told: “The little things make a big difference”, and our habits when it comes to the small stuff create massive results over time.
Knowing which micro-tasks to prioritize and which to put off, delegate, or automate can quickly have a huge impact on both your mental health and the trajectory of your business.
Are You Spending or Investing Your Time?
When it comes to money, we know that whatever we spend is gone forever, but what we invest pays us back a return. You can think about your time the exact same way.
Spending your time means doing things that must be done over and over again with no lasting benefit – they reset to zero each day. These tasks might keep things from falling apart, but they don’t move you forward or build toward anything.
From Ashley’s long To Do list, these “overhead” tasks are:
Answer routine emails
Follow up on an outstanding invoice
Wade through administrative paperwork
These are things that can be batched, automated, systemized, or delegated to make space for higher leverage activities.
But her list also holds the ‘big little things’ – small actions that seem minor in the moment but build exponentially.
Have a short but difficult conversation to give critical feedback to an employee
…and over time, these conversations grow the team’s capabilities and lead to culture shifts and increased productivity.Book coffee with a new professional connection
…and build a strong referral network for mutual benefit.Actually read the business book she bought months ago
…and gain insight and tools to make strategic business decisions.
Your own list of “investment” activities could also include dedicated thinking time, health habits, team development, and system creation.
How to Prioritize
When business leaders are overwhelmed, they tend to prioritize low leverage “spending time” tasks because they feel more urgent and the results are more visible, while postponing the ‘investing time” tasks that feel less urgent, and where results aren’t immediate.
It’s a critical distinction to make when you choose what to take care of today, and what to put off to tomorrow. The path out of overwhelm isn’t working harder to clear the overhead. It’s in delegating and automating those tasks while protecting time for the compounding activities.
This Week’s Takeaway
What can you invest 5 minutes on today, that will pay off with future growth?
Whether you call it ‘leverage vs overhead’, ‘boss work vs employee work’, or ‘working on the business vs working in the business’, compounding growth comes from recognizing which ‘little things’ are investments versus expenses of your time and energy.
Define Your Niche This February at ActionCLUB
On February 20th in Mississauga, join the ActionCLUB community where we’ll go beyond simple demographic market segments (like “men aged 20-60”) and define value that connects with prospects, even in a crowded field.
We’ll Cover:
Clearly defining your niche so your value proposition is clear and compelling for your target audience
Standing out from your competitors, so you never have to compete on price… and can command a premium rate instead
Cutting unnecessary fluff to speed up your sales cycle
Doing less of what isn’t working for you and get back your valuable time
What’s included:
ActionCLUB opening session (10-11am)
Define your Niche workshop (11am-12pm)
Networking lunch with local entrepreneurs (12-1pm)
$50 | @IDEA Mississauga | 10:00am – 1:00pm
Rest: By Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Rest is a thoughtful counterbalance to the constant pressure to do more and push harder. The author makes a research-backed case that real productivity often comes from stepping away, not doubling down, and introduces the idea of “deliberate rest” as a skill rather than a reward. Better work often starts with taking rest just as seriously as effort.
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Thanks! You’re right – keeping the big picture in focus with quarterly goals really helps with daily task prioritization.
They call it time management which is a myth, it’s always the activity management that needs to be focused. What’s long term gain activity, focus on them. Short term can be automated, combined or delegated. Nicely written with a clear example.