Do you feel like your business has you on a leash? You’d like to get away from it every now and then but just like a dog that bolts away from its owner, gets to the end of the leash and ping! A violent jolt backwards and the dog’s eyes look like they’re going to pop out of its head from the choker chain tightening around its neck.

Sound familiar? When you attempt to get away from your business do you have a similar experience? How then do you reclaim your spare time and the freedom to get away from your business when you want to?

There are many strategies that will allow you to do this and one of them is to develop a ‘to don’t list’. If you’re a list type of person, you’ll write down all of the tasks that you must get done. Sometimes this is referred to as a ‘to do list’.

Let’s flip that around and develop a ‘to don’t list’. Seems crazy?

Here’s a guarantee for you – there are tasks in your business that you are currently performing that you should not be. No exceptions, every business owner out in the small and medium enterprise world is guilty of this. To this date, of the hundreds of businesses owners I have worked with over the last 21 years, and I have worked with many highly successful people, everyone one of them, again no exceptions, have been doing tasks that could be delegated, representing huge opportunities for more time and freedom.

It really boils down to you making a decision. Do you want to grow your business so that the business is self-sustaining? In other words, would you like your business to continue to operate and provide an income stream without it relying wholly on you? If the answer yes, then you need to get serious about letting go.

First step is to work out what tasks you are currently doing in your business. Next step is to determine which tasks can be delegated and / or what tasks you don’t want to do. Be honest with yourself. Ask your team, they’ll know if you can’t work it out for yourself.