“The goal is not to find more hours in your day. That is the brute force approach to business operations, and even when you pull it off, you’ll just fill that time with more work, anyway. The goal is organizational efficiency. In this book you’ll learn how to make simple but powerful shifts in your mind-set and day-to-day operations that will make your business run on automatic. I’m talking predictable outcomes, my overworked friend. I’m talking freedom to focus on what you do best, and what you love to do. And that, compadre, is the only way to build a truly successful business—by freeing ourselves to do the work we do best and the work we love most.
You need to stop doing everything. You need to streamline your business so it can run itself. I’m talking about your business running like a well-oiled machine, run by a highly efficient team that is aligned with your objectives and values. A business that runs, well, like clockwork.”
As with most of the books I read these days, I don’t remember when or how I ever heard of Mike and Clockwork. But I don’t put a book on my bookshelf unless I’ve already decides that it’s worth reading — and Clockwork was up next.
Mike understands — from first-hand experience, as he explains/confesses — that he knows how it feels to be strangled by your own business. He was doing all the work, all the time, and any time he spent not working, his business wasn’t working, either.
He decided that he had to come up with a solution. ClockWork is Michalowicz’s explanation and teaching of that system.
The key ideas (which, in NO way means you don’t need to read the book, shortcutters):
- Know the main thing of your business.
- Invest more time in designing your business rather than working in it.
- Delegate work to people so that everyone/everything is doing what they/it do best.
- Schedule a work-less vacation that forces you to systemize your business to run without you.
I skipped several key steps in that list, and also the hard part of, HOW???
All that’s concerned in the book. If you run a business, do yourself a favor and read it. Bring a highlighter.
You Should Read Coockwork IF: You run, own, or work in a business. You’re a part of a business that has bottlenecks, has workers (or owners/operators) performing non-ideal roles, or is an any way running inefficiently. You’d like to, as owner of your biz, take a 4-week (or longer) vacation and not have any contact whatsoever with your business — while it continues to make money without your presence.
