The grind is all the stuff you do that prevents you from doing better stuff.

Better stuff is stuff that makes your employees more successful, your customers happier, your wallet thicker, and your business bigger.

You crave that, right?

So, let’s get rid of the grind stuff. Here are some options:

Repetitive Tasks

List 5 things you’ve done a gazillion times that just make you busy, not valuable.

Pick the most ridiculous one.

Stop doing it by using one of the following tactics:

1. Eliminate it. Just stop and see what happens.
2. Automate it. Find a way to get it done without effort.
3. Outsource it. It’s worth the money. Stop trying go save money by doing the grind.
4. Delegate it. If it has to be done in house, give it to someone who will grow by doing it.
5. Simplify it. Make it easier and less time-consuming.
6. Timebox it. Figure out how to realign the process or batch it so it gets done right, but with minimum focus and time.

Team Time Wasters

Ask your team what is distracting them from the prime directive (producing value for customers).

If they can’t think of anything, it’s a crisis and you need an intervention. Or it’s you, or your meetings, and they’re afraid to tell you. In which case you also need an intervention.

Once they have a list, follow the steps in the previous section.

Customer Experience Downers

Figure out everything that customers have to do to get value from you. The entire journey with all of its processes, forms, questions, etc.

Then take a hostile view of everything that requires time or effort and doesn’t directly produce value. In other words, get rid of anything that’s not “on the value chain.”

Then follow the steps above.

Vision Blockers

Describe your vision to your team. Then sit down with them and with customers and figure out which things you’re doing today that contribute to that vision.

Come up with a plan to get rid of everything else.

Use the steps above, but include “phasing out.”

Conclusion

If you look in these four places and can’t find anything, you’re almost certainly addicted to busy work. You need to back all the way up to deciding what you want. And you’ll have to be honest with yourself.