When I first got into business, I got into it to make a ton of money and I had absolutely no control over my time. I woke up when I woke up, I went straight to work, and then I worked until it was time to go home. I had no kids, no wife, and really no boundaries in place, which was fine at the time. In fact, my willingness to work hard and long hours was a huge part of what helped propel the business forward in the beginning.

Then, as I experienced more and more business and financial success, I started to see where I was falling short in other areas. Sure, I was achieving the results that I wanted. But would it always require a 12-hour day? Would I ever take a real vacation ever again? How would I fit a family into this lifestyle?

I see a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners fall into this pattern – wake, work, sleep, repeat. We have a vision, we’re passionate, we’re ambitious, and we are going to do what it takes to succeed. We are the definition of “relentless drive.” And that’s a good thing! But what I realized is that once a business reaches a certain level of success, there is a very important difference between the business owning you and you owning the business. If you need to be working in order for your business to be making money and if you’re afraid to step away from the business for a day or two (let alone a week or two), then frankly, the business owns you.

Even if you had, two, five, or ten more hours in a day, that wouldn’t change. Your lifestyle will only change when you change your relationship to time. Because the phrase “If I only had more time” is the busy person’s easiest excuse to avoid making a meaningful change.

Once I realized the pattern I was in, I started to purposefully reorganize my time and my relationship to it. One of the first things I did was create a morning routine. I started waking up incrementally earlier and earlier and layering in pieces that would help me achieve my own personal growth goals. Sure, there are and always will be business goals within my personal growth goals, however, my intent was very clear that my morning time was a time for my personal growth and not the bottom line of my business. Ironically, the more time I started investing in my own personal growth, the more my business growth accelerated. That’s not a surprise to me now after years of prioritizing time for my personal growth (and probably isn’t to you either), but at that point, it was a real eye opener. I could do other things with my time that had an equal – if not larger – impact on my business than working 12-hour days.

Then, three years ago, my relationship to time truly transformed when I started to get into Ironman competitions, which required a whole new level of training and time commitment. I would need to train for at least three hours a day to be competitive, and at this point in my life, I was no longer operating as a self-employed single person. I was running a huge organization with hundreds of people relying on me (employees and independent contractors around the country), I had an amazing wife, and had three young rambunctious kids. The old me who had no control of time would have never been able to fit in this type of physical fitness training. But because I had changed my relationship to time previously and had been refining it ever since, I knew it was doable. I only had to figure out how to make it work.

The solution was to get really purposeful about ALL of my time. I looked at my calendar and started thinking about how I could consolidate and shift time blocks. I moved all my business appointments and meetings to a four-day week and became laser focused on the things that mattered most while letting other less important pieces go or be handled by someone else.  

Here’s what I learned:

• I didn’t need to be doing about 50% of what I was doing in an average week. There were meetings that weren’t the best use of people’s time, there were always tasks that someone else was better suited for, and so on. So I started cutting out things until I eventually got it down to about half of what I was doing previously. Don’t believe me? For one week, try cutting your appointments in half. I think you’ll be surprised by how much both you and your team can get done.

• Having time when I’m not accountable to anyone else is essential for my productivity and effectiveness. I found that even with a more focused calendar, I still needed large blocks of time to do my most important works without interruption or distraction. Carve out time on your calendar when you aren’t accountable to anyone, whether that’s a chunk of time in your workday or a whole day of the week. This isn’t time to do nothing, but time to do the work that matters most and/or the work that you need to focus on without the pull to be doing anything else. Create this space and then hold firm in protecting it. It’s the life blood of your business.

• The length of my to-do list was a direct reflection of my level of clarity. We live in a time when everyone has a long to-do list. Being busy has become a badge of honor for so many people, and especially entrepreneurs and business owners. But when it comes to building and leading a business, a long to-do list is definitely not something to be proud of. In fact, when I work with coaching clients who can’t tell me in one sentence or less what their goal is for the week, I know there’s a clarity issue. Are you having trouble figuring out what to prioritize? Does everything on your to-do list feel equally important? Then you need more clarity on your goals and the actions that will help you achieve them. When you have that, there will be no question about what the most important work is. And if you need some time to figure that out, then see the previous point — because that’s a perfect thing to focus on when you block off some time for yourself! You can use my free Future Self tool as a guide to help you stay focused on what’s going to move the needle in your business and life.

These three points may sound like small shifts, but they are the types of changes that will help you eventually move mountains in your business and life. This is why in my year-long leadership training program Project | U we focus so much on time management and then holding participants accountable for that. Because if you’re spending time on the wrong things, you may be doing a lot but actually accomplishing a fraction of what you’re capable of. So I encourage you to take time this week (yes, you can find it!) to think about how you can improve your relationship to time. Imagine cutting your to-do list in half and being 2X, 3X or 5X more effective? I promise – you’ll come to realize it’s not only doable but actually an important key to your long-term growth and success.