Splitting time across Serving, Creating, Marketing and Learning

Time is like a tangerine. It can be split into different parts, with each slice distinct, yet working toward a singular purpose. Just don’t eat a slice right after brushing your teeth, or it won’t taste very good.

Where this idea of splitting time came from

I was listening one day to the 48 Days Radio Show when someone wrote in to Dan Miller asking about running a side business. The writer thought he was spending a lot of time on his business but getting nowhere. He was attending conferences, listening to podcasts, taking courses, reading books, etc. Yet, he felt he wasn’t making headway in his business.

He was right, because he spent all his time learning, and not doing something with that knowledge. Dan’s immediate suggestion was to stop spending all the time learning, but split it between learning (e.g., reading, studying, gathering knowledge), creating (e.g., things like eBooks, videos, courses), working with clients and marketing efforts. He suggested also that someone could successfully launch a side-business spending 15 hours a week broken up like this:

• Learning: 3 hours (20%)
• Creating: 5 hours (33%)
• Working directly with clients: 4 hours (27%)
• Marketing: 3 hours (20%)

My take on learning, creating, marketing and working with clients

When I first heard of this idea, I jumped onboard. I wish I could find the original episode when Dan mentioned this concept of a 15-hour-a-week side business, but it doesn’t matter too much since he’s brought up this concept more and more. Another person I’d like to mention is Marianne Renner who’s successfully running a profitable business now that started from this concept.

Now when I first heard of these different categories, I had questions like:

• What tasks or projects count for each of these categories?
• If I’m creating something for a client, does that fall under the Client category or Creating category?
• If I’m writing a blog series that I might change later to sell as an eBook, does that count as Creating or Marketing?
• Is the Clients category inclusive of everything I do for clients, such as graphic design, or more like one-on-one meetings?

After getting feedback and trying it out myself, here’s my take on how I’ve put it to practice.

Serving (Clients): 4+ hours per week

For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.

Luke 22:27

I start as one who serves people, namely clients. This is time reserved for serving clients one-on-one, whether on projects or meeting with them to better serve them. This might be through one-on-one personal meetings, virtual meetings or even emails, but most of it is spent working on projects for an individual client.

For example, if I’m creating a door hanger or sign or Google ad for a client, it falls in here. Think active income.

What about passive income? That falls in the next category: Creating.

Creating: 5 hours per week

This is time reserved for creating products that can be sold passively. If I was creating a course or eBook or product to be sold to a customer, it would fall in here.

But what if I’m creating something that someday could be used for a product, such as creating videos that could someday be converted into sellable courses? Does that count as Creating or Marketing? I’m honestly not sure, but until I’m creating a sellable product, I’d prefer to shelve that under Marketing.

Marketing: 3 hours per week

This is any time spent to get new clients or customers. This could be through online advertising, email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, running ads in ancient newspapers, etc. I’d even include events like business and chamber mixers in this category.

For example, as I’m writing this blog post, I’m engaging in content marketing so that I can get new clients (perhaps even you). So this falls under Marketing. Down the road, I might take this series of posts and create a sellable eBook or course, and at that time I’d be in the Creating category. But until that happens, I consider myself Marketing.

Social media marketing falls under this too, but I need to be careful. I might be in Marketing by engaging with people to answer questions and aim to serve more clients, but as soon as I get distracted and start scrolling through vintage fruit crate labels on Pinterest, I’m not marketing anymore, I’m just wasting time.

Learning: 3 hours per week

This time is dedicated to learning to improve my service to clients or customers. This might be through reading books, taking courses, or any form of gathering knowledge.

However, that doesn’t mean that anytime I read a book or listen to a podcast, I should count it toward  hours for learning. 

Rather, that’s why I set some specific learning goals in my planner. For example, I’ve set goals for completing courses and modules on Lynda.com and Platform University. So my hours reserved for learning are focused on one of those, depending on what I’ve scheduled.

So what do you think? Have any questions? Please contact me or leave a comment below.