When I graduated from University, I was incredibly fortunate to go back-packing across Europe, travelling through several countries.

For a time, I was with a friend, but then we went our planned separate ways and I travelled solo for a few weeks.

I remember one leg of the trip I was arriving in Prague, via train, with an hour to find my way to the hostel to check in before the front desk closed for the day. I had to navigate through a strange city and language to find the hostel where I was staying for a few days - all arranged over the phone.

This was a time of pay phones and phonebooks….and very limited internet!

I remember nervously studying my travel book in anticipation of the train’s arrival, mapping out my route in my mind, trying to picture and plan each step.

I had to take the street car from the train station, get off at the correct stop, find the correct street, turn at the next correct street and then the next to find my way. Finding the landmarks and proper streets each step of the way.

If there’s a common culprit that’s discussed amongst business owners and entrepreneurs - it’s this:

There’s never enough time to get it all done! OR I wear too many hats!

The theme here usually involves a very hard-working but overworked owner.

There’s a desire here to gain back some much-needed time and space.

Can you relate?

There are three foundational ways to free-up more of your time so you can go from feeling ‘overworked’ to having more ease and spaciousness in your business (doesn’t that sound nice?!).

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is ‘how do I grow my business’?

While businesses each have their own founder/owner strengths and opportunities, there are foundational steps to growing any business.

And, when I’m working with my clients, we look at where they are now and where they want to be. We look at what has worked in the past, what hasn’t and how we can use what’s working to fuel greater growth.

We reverse-engineer from where they want to be to hone in on the specific steps they need to take to get there.

What I’m sharing below is a guide so you can self-identify where you are and what next steps could benefit you in your business…

Growing your business can be fun, challenging, rewarding and all-encompassing. It can also feel frustrating, never-enough and like spinning your wheels.

An interesting question to consider if you have aspirations to expand is: how are you measuring growth?

There’s the traditional metrics of using revenue and profit. Those are great measures.

However, measuring growing using only the metric of growing top-line sales is using a very narrow lense.

AND these metrics are lagging indicators. They are the result of the activities you’re engaging in.

What are your leading indicators? (These are the actions you’re taking that LEAD TO the results you’re looking for.)

The number of decisions you make in a day can be astronomical.

And this can cause decision fatigue.

Decision fatigue can make us second guess our business decisions, slow us down, and make us feel like we’re missing out on opportunities.

We should have started that project by now…

My best employee has just resigned…

We need more clients but I feel like we can barely manage the ones we have…

This doesn’t make you a bad or unsuccessful business owner.

In fact, the more your business grows and expands, often the more situations you are faced with that require your input.

But if you ever wonder which direction to take, struggle with employee performance, or wonder how you’re going to continue to manage it all, then read on.

I know so many of you are planning on taking time away this month to spend time with family or for personal reasons.

As you prepare to be away what are your intentions?

What relationship do you want to have with work while you’re away? Are you looking to be completely disconnected, occasionally checking in, available when needed, or do you plan to be full on working but just away from the office?

Consider this:

1) There’s what you want

2) And, there’s what your systems and structures will support…

If you’ve ever had the thought:

“It’s too much work to take vacation, so I’m not going to bother,” then you need to read this.

How can we prepare to be absent from work or business without it causing too much stress so it negates the positive effects that time away can bring?

It’s about planning ahead and creating processes for the things you regularly do so they are more easily teachable and repeatable by others.

The more planning you do, the less stress going away will be.

Having systems in your business is like having healthy eating habits...once they're established they contribute to longevity, vitality and create a solid foundation for great things to happen - such as growth in your business.

If you were to take a survey of Business Owners and ask them why they went into business, many would say one of their top reasons was for flexibility and freedom.

However, when the business gets going and you are juggling all the different roles, it feels like you have everything BUT flexibility and freedom.