The Business of Being Ian Watt by Ian Watt

For a right brain thinker and somewhat spontaneous, fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy, its not surprising how much structure I need in my life to make it through the week, both in my personal life and my business life.

I have to admit if it werent for all the Google apps I employ to keep me organized I would be a huge mess. I can have a million creative ideas spill out of my head everyday but if I didn’t have an alarm in my calendar that gave me a fifteen minute warning to get to a showing, reply to emails, update my website and even pick up the kids, all those tasks would be forgetten.

If you have never read the E-Myth, READ IT, its a book that changed the way I run my business. Its a simple story that explains the life of an entrepreneur who bakes pies. She gets so wrapped up in pie baking that her business starts to fail, she is exhausted and she ends up hating her job.

The lesson to be learned in the E-myth is that every business needs the following 3 roles to maintain growth, success and balance; the role of the manager, the technition, and the entrepreneur. The manager keeps the back end of the business rolling, pays the bills, organizes everything, and keeps structure to the business. The technition does all the work that the clients pay for and stays in the present. And the Entrepreneur dreams up ideas, strategizes and focuses on the future.

I am not a natural manager and I can fake the role of the technition, but one important lesson I have learned is the charisma of an entrepreneur is not enough to keep a business successful. So its so important that I MAKE myself dedicate time to the role of the manager.

If you were to open my calendar, you would see my work schedule is blocked off and completely colour coded for easy recognition of what I have to do next and more importantly gage how much time I’ve spent in one of the 3 business roles. Yellow appointments are Manager duties, paying parking tickets, preparing receipts for the accountant, getting paper work done and replying to emails. Green is for the Entrepreneur role which entails marketing, blogging and creative planning. And Red is for the technition and in my case that is the role of being a Realtor, showings, tours and listing presentations. Its a great way for me to keep my business organized, ensure I don’t ignore the important aspects of my business that I hate doing, and to keep me from working too many hours a day.

This is just the way my brain works, I always get lost in my ideas and thoughts, and forget that its so important to do the things I don’t passionately love to do like paying my bills, checking in on my bank accounts. There has been more than one instance where I went to get gas and my Chevron card was denied, not because I didn’t have the money to pay the bills, but because I just forgot to pay the bill. Yes thats another reminder in my calendar. Everything I have to do has a reminder now.

Respecting my personality type and acknowledging I am the worlds worst manager, I realize I need these reminders to manage not only my business but my personal life too. That’s why in the past couple years, I’ve taken that same thought process to my personal life. Now when you look in my calendar you see a rich Pink or Fuchsia colour that has begun to dominate my calendar. This colour is for me and my personal time like scheduling in walks, excercise, time with my kids, cooking dinner a few times a week, and even going to bed. Yes if I didn’t make myself go to bed I would stay up all night thinking or creating and the problem with that is no matter what time I go to bed I still wake up before 6:00 am.

These reminders create routines, and routines create structure, and structure creates balance, and balance creates happiness for me.

Yes this is what I have to do, and it doesn’t mean that I stick to the schedule 100%. However, it means that the reminders may pile up and at the end of the day I can clearly see what I did and what I didn’t do. Those reminders stay in my inbox until I clear them out. Trust me they don’t all get cleared out at the end of every day but they all get cleared out eventually.

Furthermore, and maybe its with age or maturity, or just the realization that work is my vehicle to have a great life, I know that Pink, my personal appointments, are the most important time blocks in my schedule.

Pink appointments now rule the other colours. Reds are secondary. Pinks can bump Reds, but Reds VERY rarely bump Pinks. Yellows and Greens DO NOT bump Reds or Pinks and they take a back seat. It doesn’t mean that Yellows and Greens are not as important, but their timeliness is secondary.

For example, if I have a vacation planned, whether it be for 3 days or a week, I am not going to let a Red appointment change it. However, if I have some Red appointments tomorrow and my best friend comes to town for one day only, a Pink appointment will trump the Red and I will spend the day with her. Obviously my marketing and clerical tasks are important but those duties will be done sometime the next day. Also when a realtor texts me for a showing (keep in mind I am present for all showings) the first thing I do is check my schedule and if I have Pink coloured appointment like plans with the kids or a yoga class, then I will say sorry and make that realtor reschedule. Capiche?

When you think about it, its funny how things have changed so much in the past 3 years thanks to technology, social media and Facebook in particular. We used to think that we could have our personal lives over here and our work lives over there but do to technology and just the speed of which our lives move, everything these days are blended together. From dealing with my kids, to dealing with my clients, its all Ian Watt. Its not Ian Watt the dad and his personal life vs IanWatt (thats not a typo, I never put a space when i talk about my business) the realtor. Its all wrapped up as the Business of Being Ian Watt.

I know its strange but if you look at my iPad screen or my computer back drop there is a common theme. It says The Business of being Ian Watt. This is a reminder that “Me Inc” (The business of being who I am) is like a its own corporation that needs structure, attention and cultivation and a whole lot of tweaking to make it through the day.

Three years ago when my life was a mess, it was clear that business was the most important thing and sometimes the only thing in my calendar. The Red appointments called the shots in my calendar and that did a lot of damage to my relationships, and to my physical and mental health. Now that my priorities are much healthier, everything seems to be more balanced than ever and my business and personal life are both much easier to control. And most importantly I am much happier.

Its not easy, but discipline, confidence and faith that you are on the right path are certainly required. Also please remember, like any structure, importance of being true to what you want and being honest about what your goals actually are seem to be the keys to success.

If this is the Business of Being Ian Watt. Take some time and ask yourself this, what does the Business of Being You look like?