After reading Tim Ferriss’ The 4 Hour Work Week, I became a firm believer in outsourcing tasks that bring me little joy.

So, when I started to delegate certain tasks and functions (in other words, letting go), I noticed that I had more hours in my day to create and develop.

How I Carve Out a 4-Hour Work Day

While I haven’t been able to create a 4-hour work week, I’ve been experimenting with a 4-hour work day since mid-February. Here’s how my 4-hour work day looks:

06:00 – Hit the gym
07:30 – Have breakfast, shower and do my morning devotional
09:30 – Check in with my VA to make sure nothing has blown up
10:00 – Take a nap
12:00 – Wake up, then grab some lunch
12:30 – Head to my office to start my work day
16:30 – End my work day

I do this schedule 3-times per week – Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays, I shoot videos for my sales pages, blog and Marketing Fit TV, then play bridge in the afternoon. I don’t work on Fridays.

Of course, this schedule changes depending on travel or if I have a speaking gig. And sometimes I don’t take a nap at 10am. I may instead work from 9:30am to 1:30pm, then take the rest of the day off.

What I’m Doing Differently

I’ve been able to create a 12-hour work week by:

1. Delegating all the administrative tasks to my virtual team. My virtual team, led by the amazing Terry Green, answers tickets in the help desk, mails out customer orders, prepares things in the shopping cart to support a new product launch, answers the toll-free number and plans my speaking gigs.
2. Focusing on business development only. I do tasks and attend events that help me identify potential clients and joint ventures for my business. Social media is a full time endeavor for me because it’s a business development tool. I love to travel, so part of this strategy is speaking at more conferences and events in 2009 to schmooze with those who I can joint venture with.
3. Changing my business model from consulting to training. My business is just not set up for consulting. Going through the rigors of designing and implementing a blog or podcast solution was quite draining. I was the sales person, the project manager and the support team all rolled into one. With the birth of Marketing Fit, I now focus exclusively on training and coaching.
4. Mapping out my entire sales & marketing funnel for 2009. In the past, I would create a product on a whim. But this year is different. I mapped out my entire sales & marketing calendar for 2009. I’ve identified what needs to be done and when. This has helped me to pour my energy into 4 products instead of a dozen.
5. Spending my money on courses and products that help me improve my business. I have 3 goals for my business in 2009 – produce more high ticket items, change my mindset to think more like a CEO and develop more systems in my business. Any course, workshop or product that centers on these 3 areas are the ones I’ll sign up for.
6. Creating systems. All my email templates, documents and project plans for each project now has codes. For example, whenever I do a free teleclass, we tend to use the same emails and the same project plan. By assigning the templates with codes, my virtual team just needs to copy and paste to prepare the individual tasks for my free teleclass. This frees me up to focus on delivering great content. I just LOVE systems.

What I Still Need to Do

There are still a few roles that I need to outsource, for example, I need to find an Online Affiliate Manager, an Online Business Manager (or Project Manager) and an Online Community Manager. Once I fill these roles, I’ll look at decreasing the number of hours I work per week.

My income has remained the same, however, it’s only been 2-weeks. I probably won’t see the effects of my 12-hour work week for about 90-days. I’ll provide an update on my income in June 2009.

Photo credit: aliraza*

What are you doing to create a less stressful, more productive work day?