I Can’t Do Everything

Boy, have I been thinking this one lately. It seems that as soon as I put my mind to increasing business, I get exactly that. And then comes the side effect - being so busy that I end up playing a huge juggling act. As I see it, I have three choices here:

1. Try to be God and do it all myself, working morning till night, and basically burn out and dream about code at night (I’ve actually done that, as sad as it is)
2. Start refusing business or start dropping projects.
3. Find others to do some of the work.

As SO many entreprenuers can attest to, the instinct is to try to do it all myself. I’m thinking “its good to be busy” and that “nobody else will do it as well as myself”. What a trap that is! It’s incredibly hard to get out of that mindset, though. PC Media is my baby, and I pretty much came up with every procedure, policy, and project in the business. Those people who work for me in any capacity are pretty much running with things I set in motion. Even little things like shipping orders or my accounting I end up doing myself. Sometimes that is out of necessity (nobody else will do it), but sometimes its also because I think I will do it right. Which is true for the most part. But, at the end of the day, it will only end me up tired and with an incomplete todo list.

My time has been the leading limitation to growth of PC Media in the last couple years. Don’t get me wrong, the company is expanding, but not at the rate I want. And its mainly because I just get more effecient. But, I do have a limit. I want to have a life. Spend time with my wife. Have some fun. Play with the dog.

Refusing business is not a good idea either. Its always good to expand the business to meet demand, not reduce demand to meet the business.

So, I think its time to adjust my expectations and start outsourcing. Why adjust my expectations? Because of that instinct that nobody else can do it as well as me. It might even be true. Nobody knows PC Media like me. However, I need to learn to know when good is simply good enough and move on. There’s also the virtual assistant idea. Need to look into that and see how it works. Right now, I have Rich working for me doing all the online video work for me. But, I really need some other stuff offloaded. Here I am - my ideas and projects are what keep everything here rolling. And yesterday I was dicking around trying to ship ONE UPS order because the damn thermal printer was not set up right for UPS. That’s stupid grunt work and I’m sorry, my time is more valuable than that.

Do any of my readers have experience with this issue? Any input?

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