We’re continuing our conversation about how us business owners can improve as individuals, and today’s theme is that how you spend your time really matters. We’re bringing in two concepts: The Rainmaker’s Dilemma, and the “Value Ladder” from the book “Time Really Is Money: How to Work for $5,000 Per Hour” by Rob Slee.

Rob writes that in addition to the corporate ladder, there’s also a value ladder which is taller than the corporate one and that we ourselves decide how high we want to climb on. As business owners, we often do things (for various reasons) that don’t actually provide value.

Let’s say you have a lawn mowing business, and you’re out there pushing the mower every day. You could be amazing at cutting lawns, but there’s a limit to how much value you create and how much income you receive if you choose to spend your time doing that. There’s nothing wrong with this, and that’s what a lot of people want to do. There is some value being created. However, if you were to instead create a process for how to mow lawns, you have an opportunity to create much more value.

If you step back and look at the things you do on a regular basis, there are probably some things that anybody with a minimal amount of training could do. Spending your time on those types of activities is not going to bring a whole lot of value. The things that you are really good at are the hardest ones to hand off to someone else.

Think of activities that you can train other people to do. It’s easy to knock off some easy tasks in your inbox and to feel good about that, but it’s not a real accomplishment that will bring greater success down the road.