How Can A Tight Timeline Work For You… and Make You a Ton Of Money

It is real important for every business person to set parameters for those that work for him or her to follow. I call them rules of engagement. Every owner needs to set parameters around how you will deal with others. For many this seems harsh but guarding your time and limiting your interruptions is the key to productivity.

Check out this model, if you want to see why you want to avoid interruptions:

The average Restaurant Owner is interrupted 5 times in an hour.

Each interruption takes 5 minutes and 3 minutes to get back into what you were working on.

So if you work 10 hours a day then this is how really productive you are:

• 5 interruptions x 5 minutes each x 10 hours = 250 minutes lost to interruption

• Each interruption takes 3 minutes to get back on track (5 interruptions per hour x10 hours x 3 minutes to get back) = 150 minutes lost on refocusing

• 250+150 = 400 Minutes (6.66 Hours per day lost)

Ok, now let’s think about the time you spend each day in Operations fixing problems, how about Human Resources? What about with your guests?

2 basic rules I follow to keep things moving and protect the time that is the most valuable “The time you spend working on your business as opposed to in it.”

1. Time Block: Set time aside that is uninterrupted. This is the time each and every day you work on your restaurant to push it ahead.† Even if the toughest time you can only take so much negativity… you have to limit it and at some point you need to work on getting ahead.Maybe even more important in a tough time I suggest you carve out time that your people know you are off limits. In the past I have even gone to the local library to get the time I need to propel my business forward. Set this time up as far in advance as possible and do not change it for any reason what so ever.† This sometimes is the most important thing you can do for everyone, ESPECIALLY YOU.
   
2. The 24 hour rule:
   *** Don’t let yourself slow down the process***
   This is verbatim my rule to my people. I believe in empowerment and responsibility and this allows them to ask the question but does not allow them to use a delay in response as a responsibility negator. The 24 hour rule – If you are working on something and are looking for approval or review for something you know is right for our business and have worked it through, especially when time is of the essence, if you believe it is quality and represents us as we would all expect then YOU MUST MOVE FORWARD, Make the call and go for it!. At least give ‘em 24 hours to respond. We can all agree that we can all get busy and that “busy” may slow us from doing the right thing as a company.

This 24 hour rule mentality is designed, usually when you are on a timeline (which as a company we are focusing on getting everything to be time based commitments) when you may have sent something to a superior and are waiting to hear input. If they say/email to hold until further comment then hold – if they are non-responsive you have to do the right thing for the business.

“I recognize that I can slow things and this is designed to empower people to do their jobs more independently, ultimately growing our business exponentially.”

- Jonathan W Munsell\

Both of these tools will create more freedom in your own work life.† Use this extra time to step back and figure out more ways just like this that can improve your business with actually less work from you and definitely less personal involvement. Think about it for a few seconds… if you can figure out just a couple more of these you will continue to figure out ways to get more done in less time and ultimately you could even have a 4 day work week.† Imaging this even for a brief moment… if you limit access to you and you figure out a couple more systems to avoid you in the chain of command… COMPROMISING NOTHING from a quality of operations perspective. The real improvement comes from empowering your people and your working less… worse case scenario you don’t work any less but you are far more productive and your company moves forward faster than ever before.

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