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Author Ben Glass' "no B.S." time management strategies remind franchisors that time is not only valuable - it's also fleeting.

Key Takeaways:

It’s easier for business owners to value their time when they accept that it’s connected to the value they add to the world.
Entrepreneurs can protect their time by permitting themselves to be “ruthless” with time management, delegating tasks and taking responsibility for their schedule.
Team-building is critical for time management and creating a business where employees can thrive.

When Ben Glass founded his legal practice after spending over a decade working for a larger firm, his motives were simple: he wanted more time.

“I started my own firm, in large part, because I was coaching three soccer teams and I didn't need that longer commute,” says Glass, founder of BenGlassLaw and co-author of “No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs,” a guidebook for entrepreneurs looking to regain control of their time and schedules.

But while the fledgling firm’s business was strong in the beginning, Glass eventually found himself struggling to reach new clients and grow his company in a pre-internet world where legal marketing often required specialized skills – and enough spare time to put those skills to use without compromising the experiences of existing clientele.

“As the cases ran out, I found out I really didn't know much about business, marketing, systems, people, that sort of stuff,” Glass recalls.

Ultimately, Glass turned to a business coach Dan Kennedy to learn about marketing – a skill he became so good at that he later started Great Legal Marketing, a business that focused on teaching attorneys how to leverage yellow page listings to attract new clients (today, the company offers an array of marketing services for solo and small law firm owners).

For Glass, the experience was life-changing. With a new skill set that empowered him to attract clients and generate leads among attorneys from multiple practice areas, business was finally booming. This time, though, Glass understood what he hadn’t before – moving forward, the way he chose to spend his time as an entrepreneur would make or break his businesses.

Recognizing the value of time - and ourselves

When it comes to understanding the value of time as a finite asset, Glass believes it’s crucial for entrepreneurs to understand the value of the energy and work they contribute to the world.

“I want people … to just accept, for a moment, the value that you bring to the world. If your thinking on that is correct, and you're right-minded about (how) you are important and you actually change the world, then you start to think, ‘Alright, so it's okay for me to be ruthless with managing my time – with protecting my time,” Glass says.

By being deliberate and unsparing in their approach to time management, including rejecting or delegating tasks that don’t align with their goals or skill set, business owners can recognize that their time is directly linked to their value and free up their schedule to focus on things that truly matter to their business.

For entrepreneurs, that process starts with determining their unique strengths and weaknesses – something Glass refers to as their “zone of genius” – and then delegating or outsourcing any tasks that fall outside that area.

“You serve the world best when you work in your zone of genius,” Glass says, explaining that entrepreneurs who excel at creativity and innovation serve their businesses better when they focus on generating ideas and delegate technical tasks to others who excel in them (and vice versa), rather than trying to tackle everything on their own.

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The power of embracing 'selfishness'

In addition to recognizing the value of their time, Glass advises entrepreneurs to be “ruthless” in protecting their schedules – a skill he says many business owners struggle with due to constant pressure to stay busy.

“If you use (‘ruthless’) in a common discussion, it's like someone who's ruthless is mean. What we're talking about is paying attention – knowing how much your time is worth,” Glass says.

For many business owners, “founder’s guilt” – that is, feeling selfish for not constantly working even while others are – is a key obstacle that can prevent them from managing time more effectively.

“I love the word ‘selfish.’ It's a misused word, like ‘selfish’ means something I didn't deserve. I went and grabbed out of your pocket, your dollars. I took your car. That's selfish. That's stealing,” Glass says. “When you think about yourself and put yourself first because you're the prime mover – that's the way it's supposed to be.”

Perhaps no one is better at putting that philosophy into practice than Glass. Despite the 40 years he’s invested into building a career as an attorney, entrepreneur, author and mentor, Glass hasn’t neglected his duties at home as a husband and father of nine. After work, he also doubles as a soccer coach and athlete – important roles that have helped shape his views on establishing priorities and accepting responsibility for scheduling.

“When we’re unorganized about our time blocking, we steal from our families,” Glass says.

Accountability still matters

The third principle of effective time management, according to Glass, is discipline – even when a business owner isn’t particularly disciplined by nature.

“It doesn't take a highly-disciplined person (to succeed), but it takes thinking about the problem and wanting to solve the problem so that you can be good for the world, for your employees and for your customers,” Glass says.

According to Glass, practicing discipline by scheduling tasks, rather than creating endless lists that are often left unfinished at the end of the day, can be a game changer for entrepreneurs who feel like there’s never enough time to finish everything that needs to be done.

“When I have things that I need to do, they go very temporarily on a pad or in my journal. But if it’s something that I’m responsible for doing, it has to be transferred to the calendar as soon as it can,” Glass says.

That’s because scheduling tasks, rather than utilizing to-do lists that lack structure and can roll over into tomorrow, challenges entrepreneurs to prioritize their time and take accountability for what gets done today.

“It really forces you to think. And here's the teaching lesson: if it won't fit on your calendar when you try to move it there – if it just won't fit, it's not going to fit in life either,” Glass says.

Overcoming ego and building a great team

Beyond the fundamentals of scheduling and time management, there’s another key step entrepreneurs can take to regain control of their schedules: building a team that’s empowered to handle tasks that are aligned with their skills.

Although entrepreneurs often feel compelled to micromanage staff or handle every aspect of their business on their own, Glass says it’s important to let go of some control for the sake of managing their time more effectively – and allow others to shine in their own ways in the process.

“It's a lot about letting go of the vine, right? It's ego. Our ego gets in the way,” Glass says.

To empower his employees, Glass utilizes a strategy of inviting staff to listen in on calls with clients and colleagues. By observing how Glass answers questions about his businesses, staff can discern the best ways to handle calls and begin to field client questions on their own – skills that, once mastered, position employees to thrive while allowing Glass to focus on more urgent tasks throughout the day.

No matter how much support a business owner receives from staff or outsourced third parties, though, Glass points out that entrepreneurship is inherently hectic. Because of that, it’s important for business owners to keep things in perspective whenever their time feels limited after following best practices.

“Accept the notion that this is the life we have chosen. It is often chaotic. But we could have chosen to be employees – show up at a set time and go home when set time is over. And to be fair, the world needs employees. We need employees. But that’s just not us,” Glass says.