Time Management for Business Owners — What to Do Yourself & What to Systemize

You don’t need more time. You need better clarity.

One of the biggest mistakes I see business owners make — especially in the early stages — is trying to do everything themselves.

You’re:
 • taking orders
 • replying to messages
 • packaging
 • managing inventory
 • handling production

And by the end of the day… you’re exhausted.

But here’s the real question:

👉 Are you busy… or are you growing?

Because growth doesn’t come from doing more tasks.
 It comes from doing the right tasks.

💡 Here’s the shift that changed everything for me:

✨ Focus your time on:

•  strategy 
•  product development 
•  customer relationships 
•  growth decisions 

The moment you stop being the doer of everything
and start becoming the designer of systems — your business changes.

Be Part of my VIP community Chocopreneur circle where your doubts will be heard, and like minded people come along and grow together 

https://chocopreneur-circle-vipgroup.lovable.app

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to She Builds with Heart. I'm your host, Lulva Kapadia, chocolatier and entrepreneur and a chocolate business coach. Let me ask you something. Do you ever feel like you are working all day but still not moving forward in your business? Do you feel that you are busy with orders and messages and packaging and small tasks? And by the end of the day, you are exhausted but not satisfied. Because of course, you feel that you know you are working full day, and as a business owner, you are doing everything yourself and saving money and building your business and working really hard. But at the end of the day, when it comes to month end, and when you pay away all your bills, you're not able to see any profits in your account, and that feeling is non-satisfactory because you feel, Am I I'm working so hard the entire month? Why am I not earning anything? So, if that's you, this episode is for you because today we are we are talking about uh time management as a business owner, and more importantly, what should you as a business owner as the CEO of your company should be doing, and what should your systems or team be handling? So the real problem is uh we want to do everything ourselves, right? And in the beginning, when you are just starting your business, uh first six months, one year, it is very normal to do everything because, and also it is important because until and unless you do everything, you're not going to learn those tasks, and you're not going to learn everything, and then uh it is important to learn all the small tasks so that when you have a team, you are able to delegate them and you know exactly what to expect from them because you have done those tasks yourself, but it is not wise to continue doing those tasks yourself and not have anyone to do those things as as your business grows. If if you continue to do everything on your own, then you are the bottleneck. But as a business owner, your job is to remove the bottleneck that your business is uh facing, right? So you can't be the bottleneck for your business. If you are the bottleneck, then uh your growth slows down, your energy, your personal energy, it drains, and your business uh stays dependent on you, and that's not sustainable. Your business shouldn't be dependent on you. Shift your role from doer to owner. Now you're not just a chocolatier, you are a business owner. Or if I have to talk about any business, you're doing baking or doing any other business from home. So you're not just that, but you are a business owner, and a business owner's job is uh not to do everything, it is to a business owner's job is to decide, take decisions, right? Design systems, build processes, and focus on growth. So step one is to identify high value tasks, and those high value tasks are your zone. So these are the tasks you should focus on, which is it can be product innovation, it can be pricing decisions, marketing strategy, customer relationships, business planning. So these are all the growth driving activities, and your task is to allocate most of your productive time and especially morning hours to these tasks so that you can work effectively and your business grows because your focus is on the growth-driving activities. Now, the second step would be to identify repeatable tasks. So any task which keeps repeating again and again, so you need to identify those tasks, and these are the tasks which can be delegated because they are being repeated, right? No decision making is required here, right? For example, if I have to chop almonds, then I have to chop almonds every day, one kg almonds every day. I have to chop, and this is the repeated task, and it can be systemized and simplified, so I can have uh a team member dedicated to this task every morning. You have to come from 10 a.m. to 11am, it is going to take one hour because I have done it myself personally, so I know if I work in a very productive manner how much time it's going to take to chop 1 kg almond. So when I design the job role for the employee who is going to come to me, I know okay, when you come in the morning, one hour you are going to chop almonds, then the next hour you are going to do this task. So these are all the repeated tasks, and you're going to allocate uh employees and delegate these tasks to someone else. You are not going to spend your time doing these tasks. Some other examples of repetitive tasks can be packaging, order tracking, inventory management, basic production, uh, message replies to clients, and these are very exhausting and time-taking tasks. As business owners, we don't realize, and we we feel you know, if our phone is ringing throughout the day, we feel privileged. Okay, we are busy people. Our phone uh my phone keeps ringing, and so many people messaging me, and I have to reply and manage orders and all. But you are investing your energy in non-productive tasks, and your business is not going to grow this way, trust me, because I've like experienced everything, have done everything myself, then have had a team and delegated tasks, so I know like at which point your business is going to grow. Uh, now the third step is to build a lean team. Of course, you don't need a big team, you need a smart team. Now, when you have done all the tasks yourself, you would know exactly what all tasks to categorize under under one team member, what all tasks to categorize under second team member, and you can just start with one person for production, and and I would say not even for full day, right? If you're just starting your business, it's just been three, four months, and now you see that there are a lot of repetitive tasks like cleaning of the molds, cleaning of the uh trays and the baking molds, and packaging the chocolates, and these are like very simple basic tasks. Then you can have one employee and start with half day. You can just pay for, like, you know, ask the employee to come from 10 to 2 and go home, and in that four hours, you can just allocate a few of the repetitive tasks to them and use your time in the growth activities for your business. Now, create uh step four would be create simple systems, and these simple systems because now you are in the process of delegating tasks. Of course, you need to have systems, and these systems can't be complicated, they have to be simple because any caliber person should be able to understand that, and they can be like you can have your checklist, you can have your WhatsApp templates, order formats, daily routines, things like that. Then the next step would be protect your time. Time is your most valuable asset, right? So ask yourself daily is this the best use of my time as a business owner? If not, delegate it, simplify it, or else remove it because every hour you spend on low-value tasks, it is an hour taken away from your growth. So I would like to conclude by saying that you don't grow your business by working more hours, you grow your business by working on the right things, building systems, trusting your team. You don't need a big team to scale. What you need is clarity, systems, and focus. So I would say start small, delegate slowly. You don't have to like have 10 employees on day one, and then you'll be lost. Your entire time will just go in managing those 10 employees. So start small, delegate slowly, build systems step by step and watch how your business starts running without running you. So until next time, manage your time wisely, lead with clarity, and always build with heart. If you wish to join my community, you can click on the link below and be part of my community. And if you feel if this podcast can be of help to any of your friends and family, then you can share it with them. I'll see you all in the next episode.