How to 80-20 your work hours

"What exactly should I work on each day?" We get endless tips on how to be more productive with our work hours but very little info on what to actually do during those work hours. The only way I can possibly tackle this question is to simply show you how I look at things and what I (try to) do. Mindset comes first. As always, it's all about the 80-20 rule (Pareto principle). "80% of outcomes (or outputs) result from 20% of all causes (or inputs) for any given event." The first step is to understand the 1 or 2 "engines" that drive your particular type of business. If I work on X & Y... that will make up at least 80% of my growth. In a courses, or information product-driven business like CopyHour, there are 2 engines. 1. Lead generation. 2. New products. If I spend 80% of my time working on those 2 things, I'm good. Here's where the 80-20 principle gets really powerful... There's an 80-20 of the 80-20. For a courses a business, lead generation/nurturing will produce 80% of the 80%. - If I have 8 hours to work each day. - I need to be spending at least 6 hours (.8 x 8hrs) working on leads & new products. - But of those 6 hours, at least 4 hours (.8 x 6hrs) should be spent on lead generation activities. And you can take the 80-20 another step. Of the 4 hours working on leads, I want to decide what's most important. Should I focus on new leads (inbound &Â outbound activities) or old leads (nurturing & follow-up)? New leads are the lifeblood of courses businesses, so at least 3 hours of the 4 should be spent on new leads. That leaves 1 hour for nurturing 'older' leads -- like writing this email. This gives my working hours a whole lot of clarity: - 8 hours to work? - 6 hours are spent on building new products & lead generation. - 4 hours on lead gen. 3 hours on new lead gen. 1 hour on nurturing or working on "old" leads. - 2 hours on new products (research, talking to customers, building, etc.) - 2 hours on fulfillment (customer calls + product updates) &/or any admin activities. Now let's do a freelance copywriting business. What are the 2 engines? They are similar to a courses business: 1. Lead generation 2. Copy (your product) delivery. I'd say in the beginning, copy is probably the more important thing to spend time on -- the 80-20. You need to build your skills to the point that lead generation makes sense. (This can flip super fast though). So... - 8 hours of work time. - 6 hours on leads and copy. - 4 hours on the copy. - 2 hours on leads (inbound & outbound) activities. I'll dive deeper into what I think are the best specific activities to fill the 80-20'ed hours in another email. For now, know this: I teased last week that I'll be releasing a new product. I will be, but I need a bit more time to get everything ready. This product solves the #1 issue & question that almost every newish copywriter has for me: "how do I start getting clients?" I'll have more as soon as I'm able. I hope the above breakdown gave you some good ideas for what to focus on! - Derek +++++ Today's recommended course: [Daily Email Income.]( Sent to: {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( CopyHour.com, 340 S LEMON AVE, 5007, WALNUT, CA 91789