Few managers would disagree with that statement, which we found on the website of PPD Consultants. The engineering-services organisation asks four questions to address the “to meet or not to meet” dilemma:

1. Is there a clear purpose for the meeting?

Strong examples: (a) to reach a decision; (b) to brainstorm for solutions to a problem; and (c) to promote a sense of accountability (by creating a public forum where one’s work is on display for all to see, so people push harder to deliver).
Weak example: to gather status-only reports for areas of little activity.

2. Should we meet now?

It may be logical to postpone the meeting if required information is missing or a critical team member is unavailable. Don’t be too quick on this trigger, however; you don’t want to cancel necessary meetings.

3. Is there a better alternative?

Information-only debriefs, such as status updates, can be done through e-mail or other means. If the topics only involve two or three members, then an informal subgroup session may be wiser than an all-hands-on-deck meeting.

4. What if the meeting is not held?

Before postponing a meeting, consider: What would not be accomplished? How would team members react? How would senior managers react? If people are telling you that nothing would be missed (or implying as much by their absence or lack of interest), then you have your answer, which should lead you to either cancel the meeting or find ways to improve it.

Small businesses rarely have small problems or big budgets. I’m always on the lookout for technology that would make our lives easier. Unfortunately, clunky user interfaces and non-existent support means apps are often more trouble than they were worth.

Here are a few apps that I can’t live without. These five are easy to use apps are cloud-based and scalable, this means they can grow along with your company. The best bit is that each app has a free or nearly free version for businesses just starting out who need to control costs.

Zendesk

Zendesk simplifies and streamlines customer service. The app consolidates all customer communications like email, social media, websites, and even phone into individual “tickets” that all your team can access and respond to. You can automate standard responses, store customer histories, and create product forums where customers can interact and answer each other’s questions.

Zendesk offers a special “Starter Plan” for up to three users for $20 per year. Regular monthly plans start at $24 per user.

Google Drive

File-sharing is an important part of a growing business, and Google Drive makes it nearly fool-proof. Multiple users can collaborate in real time, creating, editing, and commenting on documents in the cloud. Revisions save automatically, and more importantly you can access your documents from any device. All of this represents a huge productivity leap over the old-fashioned approach: attaching documents to emails and sending endless versions back and forth in a game of email ping pong.

Individual users get 15 GB of free storage. Monthly business plans start at $5 per user and include 30 GB of storage.

Evernote

Say goodbye to post-it notes. Evernote is an indispensable vacuum cleaner-style app that sucks up all of the random data you encounter on the Internet and in your real life. Whether it’s excerpts from websites, photos, voice memos, documents, or handwritten scribbles, it all gets stored in the cloud as individual “notes.” You can then sort, tag, edit, and even share these “notes” with colleagues. All of this information is in turn accessible across all of your devices and syncs automatically.

Individual users can upload up to 60 MB of content per month for free. Evernote Business ($10 per user per month) offers 1 GB per month

MailChimp

While social media has proliferated, old-fashioned email marketing remains a critical way to reach clients and build connections. MailChimp is a no-nonsense, intuitive tool for creating email lists and keeping track of which customers are opening messages and clicking on links. You can easily import contacts and even segment your lists so subscribers receive only relevant emails. MailChimp also includes basic A/B testing features, for comparing which subject lines and send times work best.

Free users can send up to 12,000 emails per month to up to 2,000 subscribers. Unlimited plans start at $10 per month.

HootSuite

HootSuite is a valuable tool. Several million people and thousands of small businesses use HootSuite to manage their social media communications. A web-based dashboard lets you access dozens of social networks in one place. You can set up streams to monitor keywords and specific followers, as well as access detailed analytics reports showing who’s reading and responding to your posts.

HootSuite’s free plan allows tracking for up to 5 social profiles. The $8.99 per month pro plan offers tracking for up to 50 profiles and advanced analytics.

All five of these apps have healthy, growing user bases, which means they’ll be around for a long time, rolling out regular updates to keep things fresh and stay relevant as your business expands.

By using all or some of these apps, your business life will take a huge step forward in productivity and efficiency, and you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them!
And yes I do pay in $’s, the US is ahead of us in innovation when it comes to business apps.

What apps do you use in your business and couldn’t live without?

Accountants help you keep an eye on major costs as early as the start-up stage, a time when you’re probably preoccupied with counting every paper clip and postage stamp. Accountants help you look at the big picture.

In fact, perhaps no other business relationship has such potential to pay off. Nowadays, accountants are more than just bean counters. A good accountant can be your company’s financial partner for life, with intimate knowledge of everything from how you’re going to finance your next forklift to how you’re going to finance your daughter’s university education.

A general accounting practice covers four basic areas of expertise:

1. Business advisory services
2. Accounting and record-keeping
3. Tax advice
4. Auditing

These four disciplines often overlap. For instance, if your accountant is helping you prepare the financial statements you need for a loan, and he or she gives you some insights into how certain estimates could be recalculated to get a more favourable review, the accountant is crossing the line from auditing into business advisory services.

The best way to find a good accountant is to get a referral from a business colleague, maybe even in the same industry. Don’t underestimate the importance of a FCA (chartered accountant). This title is only awarded to people who have passed a rigorous training and examination process.

The first step in setting the stage for a successful search is to take an inventory of what you will need. Given the level of fees you are prepared to pay, you must decide where your responsibility stops and where the accountant’s begins.

Once you have compiled your documentation and given some thought to your expectations, you’re ready to interview your referrals. Two or three candidates is a good number to start with. For each candidate, plan on two meetings before making your decision. One of these meetings should be at your site; one should be at theirs. Both parties need to know the environment the other works in.

During the ensuing interviews, your principal goal is to find out about three things:

Services
Most accounting firms offer tax and auditing services. But what about bookkeeping? Management consulting? Estate planning? Will the accountant help you design and implement financial information systems? Other services an FCA may offer include analysing transactions for loans and financing; preparing, auditing, reviewing and compiling financial statements; and representing you before tax authorities.

Although smaller accounting firms are generally a better bet for entrepreneurs, they may not offer all these services. Make sure the firm has what you need. In addition to services, make sure the firm has experience with small business and with your industry.

Personality
Is the accountant’s style compatible with yours? Be sure the people you are meeting with are the same ones who will be handling your business. At some accounting firms, partners handle sales and new business, then pass the actual account work on to other partners.

When evaluating competency and compatibility, ask candidates how they would handle situations relevant to you. For example: How would you handle an HMRC investigation seeking verification of vehicle expenses? Listen to the answers, and decide if that’s how you would like your affairs to be handled. Realise, too, that having an accountant who takes a different approach can be a good thing. Be sure that the accountant won’t pressure you into doing things you aren’t comfortable with. It’s your money, and you need to be able to sleep at night.

Fees
Ask about fees upfront. Most accounting firms charge by the hour; fees can range from £50 to £200 per hour. Quite often the fees depend on the service being provided. However, there are some accountants who offer a fixed fee spread with monthly payments. Figure out what services you are likely to need and which option will be more cost-effective for you. Get a range of quotes from different accountants.

Try to get an estimate of the total annual charges based on the services you have discussed. Don’t base your decision solely on cost, however; an accountant who charges more by the hour is likely to be more experienced and thus able to work faster than a novice who charges less. At the end of the interview, ask for references or testimonials, particularly from clients in the same industry as you.

After you have made your choice, ask for the terms of the agreement in an “engagement letter” that details the returns and statements to be prepared. This ensures you and your accountant have the same expectations and helps prevent misunderstandings and hard feelings. All professional accountants should be doing this as standard.

Make the most of the accounting relationship by doing your part. Don’t hand your accountant a shoebox full of receipts. The better you maintain your records, the less time your accountant has to spend, and the lower your fees will be. Ask your accountant if they provide accounting software, good accountants will have several cloud solutions available.

It’s a good idea to meet with your accountant periodically. Review financial statements and go over any problems so you know where your money is going. This is where your accountant should go beyond number-crunching to suggest alternative ways of cutting costs and act as a sounding board for any ideas or questions you have.

A good accountant can help your business in ways you never dreamed possible. Spending the time to find the right accountant, and taking advantage of the advice he or she has to offer, is one of the best things you can do to help your business soar.

New interns, with their expectations and beliefs that they have all this superior knowledge gained by earning a 1st in their degree. Or perhaps you have more technical interns that have earned A*’s in their engineering classes. Either way, interns are great, and I highly recommend that you hire one or two or three.

But do you know what is even better? An apprentice.

What’s the difference? Well, the Dictionary.com definition of intern includes the word “apprentice,” so on the surface it seems like they are very similar. They are both people, usually young, who want to learn a career. But the big difference is the amount of time involved.

If you remember from your history classes, young boys (and occasionally girls) were apprenticed to experts in everything from barrel making to medicine. The apprentice stayed with his “master” (not a term I’d like to resurrect) for years. How long does the average intern stay around these days? Three months? Four? or one summer.  Often, University students try to gather as many internships as they can during their time in higher education. But, what about the apprenticeship model?

Did you learn the ins and outs of your job and your business in three months? Probably not. In fact, we generally tell managers to give new hires a good six months to settle in and add benefits to the company. (It’s one of the reasons the cost of turnover is so much greater than just head-hunter fees. Hitting the ground running is very unusual.) But we expect interns to gain great understanding in a short period of time.

An apprenticeship is different. With that, there’s an understanding that the relationship between apprentice and mentor (better word!) will go on for years. The apprentice learns to do what the mentor does, not just general things about being in business.

This seems clear cut when it comes to plumbing (a profession that still has apprenticeships), but instead of using this system for other areas, we rely on universities to train people. This is utterly illogical, as many professors haven’t spent much time in the actual business world. Why would we expect them to train our future employees? I’m not knocking education, by the way. Logical thinking, technical knowledge, and the ability to write are all valuable things. And some stuff just requires lots of memorisation. (I don’t want my doctor stopping to Google if I’m having a heart attack).

But, what if you started hiring apprentices? (And yes, you have to pay them.) The reality is, even if you’re not benefiting at the beginning, you’d be benefiting by the end. What if you brought on a college student with the understanding that he or she would work for you for 10 hours a week for the next four years? And that this person would not be in an entry level job sorting mail and filing excess paper, but would sit beside you in meetings, and learn to do what you do. Not just general knowledge about your business, but what it takes to do what you do?

Think of how that apprentice could be light years ahead of his or her counterparts when graduation comes about? The knowledge of how to handle a problem, how to put together a proposal, what goes into finding a manufacturer, and what a pain it is to find good insurance for your company, would be invaluable to the apprentice.

And it would be invaluable to your company. The apprentice’s ability to contribute will become greater than any string of interns, all at a reasonable price. And when your apprentice finishes the apprenticeship, you can either offer a permanent job or another company will be happy to snap up a new grad with four years of real experience.

But perhaps the biggest benefit for small companies is the ability to concentrate on the business at hand and let the cloud-based service handle IT concerns as security, maintenance, backup and support.

With an increasing number of companies offering an ever-growing menu of cloud computing solutions, choosing one can be challenging. Here are 10 essential questions to ask as you screen potential providers to select the right one for your particular needs:

1. Which cloud services do you provide?
Knowing what your cloud computing needs are will dictate the type of service or services you choose, says Nicholas Bessmer, author of Cloud Computing for Small Business (Amazon, 2013).

There are software-based cloud offerings, such as SugarSync for online document, photo and video storage. Sage offers SageOne for online accounting. And there’s Salesforce for online customer relationship management (CRM).

If you need more than basic data storage, several vendors offer a range of general-purpose cloud computing services, including IT networking infrastructure with on-demand access to virtual servers, applications and software. These include IBM SmartCloud Enterprise, Amazon Web Services and GoGrid.

2. What is your pricing structure?
You should only pay for what you use, says Mike Foreman, a general manager at AVG Technologies, an Amsterdam-based internet and mobile data security provider.

Also, be wary of large upfront costs, which aren’t the norm for reputable cloud vendors, Foreman says. The pricing scheme should be pay-as-you go from the outset, with the ability to add services as needed. Fees can typically be charged hourly, monthly, semi-annually or annually, depending on the vendor. Pricing for cloud computing services can vary significantly, from as low as about £1 per month per user to £100 a month per user and up, depending on a company’s needs.

3. How secure is your cloud?
Security should be a major consideration when it comes to storing your company’s critical data in the cloud. Cloud providers should have several standard security measures in place and constantly update them, Foreman says. “You’ve got to be sure that you’re completely comfortable with your cloud provider’s approach to security.”

Security measures to look for include firewalls, anti-virus detection, multifactor user authentication and data encryption, and routine security audits. It’s also important to ask who at the cloud company will have access to your data in the cloud and whether the cloud provider does employee background checks to weed out potential cybercriminals or identity thieves.

Foreman says providers also should answer questions about compliance with government legislation specific to your industry. For example, if your business is in the healthcare industry, you’ll want to be sure your cloud provider is compliant with patient data privacy and security.

4. Where is your data centre and how safe is it?
The location and security of the data centres and servers where your company’s information will be stored are as important as online security, Foreman says. “You want to make sure you’re not doing business with a guy with a couple of servers in a spare room somewhere that could quite easily be accessed and compromised.”

To make sure that isn’t the case, Foreman suggests asking how a potential cloud vendor protects its data centre from natural disasters, including fires, floods, earthquakes and storms. Also, find out how the facilities are protected from thieves who could walk away with your sensitive data.

Perhaps the best indicator that a cloud vendor’s data centres can withstand a myriad of security threats is a Standards for Attestation Engagements 16 (SSAE 16) certification. SSAE 16 certification demonstrates that a company’s products, systems and data are compliant with the industry security standards for customer access and privacy, data centre physical security and data redundancy.

5. What happens if you lose my data?
On the off chance your cloud provider accidentally deletes or loses your precious data, you need to know how it will rectify the problem. Be sure to ask: What provisions are in the company’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) that address potential data losses? Will the provider compensate you for losses? What data redundancies does it have in place to mitigate the risks of data loss? It’s also important to ask if the company has experienced any significant issues resulting from the loss of customer data.

6. What customer support services do you offer?
Without exception, technical support should be available to you online or by phone 24 hours a day, every day, including holidays, Bessmer advises.

You should also inquire about the average response and resolution time, and whether you’ll be interacting with knowledgeable engineers or customer service reps reading scripts when you call the customer help line or use a live chat feature.

7. Can your cloud scale up to meet my business needs?
As your business grows, so will your cloud storage needs. To ensure that you’re choosing a flexible cloud provider, find out what additional storage capacity and other services can be offered over time and for how much. If you plan to increase your staff, you’ll want to make sure that you can easily add additional users to your account.

8. What’s your downtime history?
Downtime is when a cloud provider is inaccessible to users via the internet for a period of time. Naturally, the best answer to this question is never. However, even the biggest, best-known cloud providers occasionally experience downtime, as Amazon recently did during an outage that took down Netflix.

Because cloud outages can be disruptive and costly for your business, it’s best to choose a provider with as few as possible. Some vendors post their downtime history logs online. If not, be sure to ask for a cloud provider’s track record.

9. How will I get set up?
Once you choose and sign with a cloud provider, the next step is typically to log in to your user dashboard and begin configuring your account and adding employees as users. Some cloud vendors will walk you through how to install and set up their services, while others, such as Amazon and Google, simply provide online introductory guides.

10. How will I access my company’s cloud?
You should be able to access your business information in the cloud from anywhere at any time via the web simply by signing in to your provider’s client login page. You can use any device to log in, including your laptop, smartphone or tablet.

Despite reporting more day-to-day stress, lower earnings and more hours worked than people employed by others, research shows that entrepreneurs are more satisfied with their jobs, and happier in general.

According to research by the Pew Foundation, 39% of entrepreneurs report experiencing “complete” job satisfaction versus 28% of those who work for a boss.

This greater job satisfaction spills over into the rest of their lives, and has a lasting effect. A recent study out of the Max Planck Institute of Economics in Germany and the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom revealed that transitioning from wage employment to self-employment boosted people’s overall life satisfaction for as long as two years after their move.

The greater satisfaction of entrepreneurs doesn’t come from earning more money. The average earnings for Americans aged 15 and older was $31,683 in 2011 according to the most current Census Bureau data. For the self-employed subset, this figure was $30,766.

Nor do higher levels of happiness stem from less work or less stress. Full-time self-employed people work more hours than full-time wage employed people, according to 2013 figures from the Bureau of Labour Statistics. Entrepreneurs also spend double the amount of time thinking about work when not at work as those who work for others, according to a survey of 2,000 business owners and employees conducted last September by AXA Business Insurance.

People who work for themselves are happier because of the freedom that working for one’s self permits. So valuable is the opportunity to be one’s own boss that studies show you have to pay people twice as much to get them to work for others and still have the same level of job satisfaction as being self-employed.

Of course, the chance to be one’s own boss is why most people go into business for themselves. When a representative sample of 3,001 adults were asked by surveyors from TNS Custom Research in the second half of 2012 why they would prefer to work for themselves 54% said “personal independence” and “self-fulfilment.” An additional 33% said “freedom to choose place and time of working.” In contrast, only 9% said “better income prospects.”

Despite the fact that people who work for themselves earn less, work more, have fewer benefits and experience more on the job stress than those who work for others, a majority of people would prefer to be entrepreneurs. Workplace autonomy is a powerful motivator.

We’re often told it is better to do something now, anything rather than nothing at all. Really? If it were as easy as that, there would be no bad decisions, which we all know isn’t true.

It may be counter-intuitive, but here’s why you need to slow down, maybe even stop, before your next big decision.

We make decisions every day. And, if you’re like most people, you’ve probably grown accustomed to the idea that decisiveness is about making choices quickly, confidently, and consistently.

But are those the right qualities for really good decision-making?

Why You Should Wait

Big science projects like CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics, approach decision-making differently. Because they’re engaged in work that has never been done before, the scientists are acutely aware of just how much they don’t know. As a consequence, they often delay design decisions as late as they can. Why? Because every day that they wait brings new data, new mistakes, new learning. They’re keen not to box themselves into choices based on information that rapidly becomes out-of-date.

This is a big challenge for any group working in research, design, and innovation. It prompts a critical question: How much do you have to know today to decide how much today? How much can you afford to delay until you know more?

What to Do in the Meantime

This seems unproductive in business, considering you’ve got used to speed, despite the mounting evidence against the first-is-always-best, fast-is-always-good phenomenon.

In a fast-moving environment, often the smartest thing to do is to stop and watch. Keep collecting data. Keep asking questions. Make a decision, yes, but leave it until the last moment you can. Take time to absorb uncertainty and learn from it.

An example of this would be Morrisons, the supermarket chain who have waited and watch the online grocery market for two years while all their main competitors jumped into the fray, they now hope to benefit from the mistakes that have been learnt over the last two years.

They won’t even have to create the costly and time consuming infrastructure their competitors had to, Morrisons are going to use the existing infrastructure of Ocado, an online grocery company which has been in partnership with the up-market Waitrose supermarket chain, and has failed to make a profit so far. This repositioning with a new partnership may be just what both Morrisons and Ocado need to effectively gain market share and profit in this fast growing area.

So while many saw Morrisons procrastinating, they were all the time gaining more information to make the best decision on how to make the most of online shopping.

Procrastination may be seen by many as the thief of time, but if you’ve got the time it may pay dividends to just wait.

Pixlee
Best for: Creating photo albums

This service lets you crowd source thousands of user-generated photos and display them online in curated albums. Sign up for an account and create a photo album on your site or on Pixlee.com. You can invite customers to upload pictures directly to the album or via email, Instagram, and Twitter. Then, you can add the album to Facebook and Tumblr. Pixlee’s software will pick the best photos based on the photographer’s popularity, where the photos were taken, and other factors. You can log on to your Pixlee dashboard to see how many photos you’ve collected, how many views they have received, and other metrics. Cost: Starting at $500 a month

Pongr
Best for: Creating loyalty campaigns

Looking for ways to solicit user-generated images of your products? Pongr lets you create loyalty campaigns on its website. You dole out points to fans who submit images by emailing them to your Pongr address or submitting them with the service’s free iPhone or Android app. People can also accrue points for sharing images and cash them in for prizes that include gift cards and iPads. Your company’s Pongr page displays the images, a leader board, and a store for redeeming points for prizes. Cost:Free to create a photo gallery and campaign; $4,500 a month for premium services, including access to CRM data and customized landing pages

Stipple
Best for: Tagging photos

Use Stipple to tag photos of your products with a variety of information, including prices, maps, and links to your online store. When someone mouses over or touches the image, the information automatically appears. The data stays with images as they are shared across the Web. You can check your Stipple dashboard to see how many people have viewed the content and on which sites. You can also use Stipple to tag images for use in traditional online ad campaigns. Cost: Free for social-media campaigns with up to 1,000 engagements, then $250 a month and up

Curalate
Best for: Tracking analytics

Curalate helps track how other people use the product images from your company’s website, Pinterest account, or Instagram account. Go to your Curalate dashboard to see a variety of metrics, including which photos are driving the most traffic to your website and which ones are being shared the most on Pinterest and Instagram. The service also identifies your most influential customers and lets you respond to pins, repins, and comments about your images from your Curalate dashboard. You can also use Curalate to create promotions on Pinterest. Cost: Roughly $1,000 a month

Ok, so the prices aren’t really in the small business budget range, but with the free options to start with, you’ll get a flavour of what works and what’s achievable, if you find it is really helping to generate new business it might be the way to go with the marketing budget if it’s giving you great ROI.

As with any marketing you try, you have to take it seriously and really give it a go, do your homework, keep it up-to-date and make sure you record any sales it gets you to find out if it can pay off. Just kinda playing with it a little now and again is never going to be successful.

Don’t worry. Your day is not a total disaster. In fact, you can save your sanity and salvage the day. You just need to re-focus and just maybe the mishaps are an opportunity  Here are some easy ways to rescue your day when mishaps threaten to ruin it:

1. Keep quick tasks close at hand.
When time opens up in your schedule, like your lunch appointment not showing up, you suddenly have time to handle other opportunities if you’re prepared. For example, carry notecards, envelopes and stamps in your bag. When you find “lost time” in short unexpected moments throughout your busy day, this allows you to write a few thank you notes, birthday cards and other hand-written messages to clients, staff and others in your network. Getting something done in place of what fell through will keep you feeling productive and the unexpected gesture makes you stand out from the crowd.

2. Avoid technology blips with practice.
Have you ever spent the first 20 minutes of a video meeting working out all the technology kinks? When I think of how many cumulative hours have been wasted, I go crazy. If you have an upcoming meeting or presentation in which you’ll be using technology that’s new to you, schedule rehearsal time. Book the conference room, have all the audio-visual equipment set up, and go through the exact procedure ahead of time. Practice using the microphone, pointing the clicker and seeing what your PowerPoint looks like on the presentation screen.

Don’t practice on key clients. Help your clients look good too by sending an agenda with the exact instructions and any audio-visual materials they’ll need. If you’re familiar with the gear, you’ll be able to better handle anything unexpected that comes your way.

3. Revive your confidence with a deep breath.
Sometimes we get so caught up in what’s happening in the moment we forget to breathe deeply. When unanticipated situations crop up, stress is a natural reaction. However, remembering to breathe deeply can calm the hectic moments and allow you to re-focus on where you want your day to go. Deep breathing improves your concentration and increases your energy. Relaxed bodies also have greater self-confidence, exactly what you need when things seem to be spinning out of control. So breathe. Deeply.

4. Anticipate emergencies.
Repeat what works and eliminate what doesn’t. This ensures you won’t have another day filled with mishaps beyond your control. For example, keep an extra shirt in your car or office, so that a coffee spill becomes a nuisance and not a disaster. Buy phone chargers for your home, office and carry-on bag to stay charged wherever you are.

5. Use cancellations as time to think about the big picture.
What’s the first thing you do when you’re notified that a meeting has been cancelled? Check email or go for coffee, right? Most people go back to what they were working on. What if you didn’t? Instead of chipping away at your never-ending mountain of emails, take that one-hour time slot that you were scheduled to be away from your desk to actually move a big, long term project forward. When was the last time you had a fully uninterrupted hour to think? Now is your time to take the opportunity and make significant progress on something big.

Short of simply working fewer hours and running the risk of tanking your business how do entrepreneurs achieve a better work-life balance while increasing their bottom-line?

In a word: Focus

The late Steve Jobs said focus isn’t deciding what to do, it is deciding what not to do. People rarely disagree that narrowing one’s focus can be helpful, but few actually do it. That’s because it’s often unclear how to focus at a practical level.

Here are six simple steps to help you strategically focus on what’s most critical in your business life so that you can earn more while working less:

1. Monetise your to-do list. Determine the financial value of completing every task on your list, then write those amounts next to the corresponding items.

For example, if the task is to prepare a proposal to land a £150,000 contract, write “Finish Proposal (£150,000).” If the task is to return a phone call from your number-one customer, who generates £1 million in annual sales, write: “Return Mary’s phone call (£1 million).”

2. Sort your list in descending order. Start with the highest amount at the top and the lowest amount at the bottom.

3. Draw a line through the middle of your list. Split your list in half with the top most important tasks at the top and the least important 50% on the bottom.

4. Spend four days a week working on the top 50% of your list. Focus on the number-one item on the list and finish it completely before you begin the next item. If you find that you can’t finish this item until someone else does something first, move on to the next item on your list.

5. Spend one day a week on the bottom 50% of your list. By forcing yourself to work on the less important (but seemingly urgent) tasks only one day a week, you won’t be able to complete them all. You’ll find that some tasks remain on the bottom 50% for many weeks at a time. You should expect this to happen and realise it’s a deliberate by product of this approach.

6. Re-evaluate the bottom 50% of your list weekly. Drop the tasks that become obsolete. If you’re forced to procrastinate on the unimportant tasks, they’ll stay on your list week after week, and you’ll quickly realise just how unimportant they are. It would be better to leave these items off your list in the first place, but sometimes people have a major aversion to dropping things from their to-do list. Using this approach, the items just become obsolete on their own, which makes them easier to ignore.

For example, if you have several £100,000+ opportunities at the top of your to do list, it makes sense to have the bottom of the list include items like reworking your company logo, scheduling lunch with someone who wants to pick your brain for free advice or price shopping to lower your insurance rates by £750 a year. Focus is not free. To get extreme results from less work, you need to be willing to sacrifice good opportunities to focus intensely on great ones.

You want to dedicate the majority of your time and energy at work to your most important, highest impact activities. When you follow these steps repeatedly for a long enough period of time, your sales and income will increase substantially. With more money in your pocket, you’ll be able to outsource and hire people to work on the bottom 75% of your to-do list, while you shift even more of your time to the top 25% of your tasks.

The key to focus is to ignore trivial tasks while doubling the time spent on the things that make a big difference. Only by doing so will you start to like your new boss a little more.