Journal of Financial Planning: December 2016
An adviser’s time is precious. For each available work hour, there are countless ways to consume it, and with each hour of productivity applied, the adviser and his or her business prospers. However, advisers are not machines that can simply be programmed for completing tasks. There is a person at hand; a person with talents, skills, histories, ambitions, and preferences.
Professional services firms connect an adviser’s work effort to the business. Essentially, the adviser and the business become one.
Important Business Work
An adviser’s direct client service—the firm’s product—can often be captured within a few broad categories, including wealth and investment planning. Many advisers find these planning activities intellectually appealing and personally fulfilling. The business connection to these services arrives when a client pays the fee and the firm’s revenue increases. So far, so good.
However, a vibrant operating business requires much more than service delivery. Sales calls must be made to fill a sales pipeline; client reports must be produced; bills must be paid; employees hired, managed, and nurtured; technology vendors evaluated and selected; investment research conducted; and compliance requirements completed. This list comprises many important activities that many advisers simply do not like to do. They may be viewed as chores and are often held in limbo due to procrastination or even neglect.
Budgeting Time for Business Advancement
Like a financial budget that allocates limited monetary resources to the most important priorities, a time budget ensures that a business’s essential tasks are completed on time and within the optimal operating range. Tasks are linked together in order for efficient use of every employee’s time. Greater efficiency means less time on a task—a worthy trade-off for those important tasks that are just not personally fulfilling.
How a Time Budget Works
Foremost, a time budget is a planning document that considers specific allocations of time according to business priorities, job responsibilities, and task sequence. While similar to a project plan, a time budget integrates a person’s assigned tasks into a single view based on a rolling week-to-week evolution.
A time budget is not for regimentation, but to be a guide as executed using these eight steps:
- Although formal tools are available, an Excel or Word table suffices. Or, your CRM can be used to schedule activities through the workflow function.
- Divide the rows into one-hour time blocks and the columns into the days of the week.
- List the week’s tasks to be completed keeping in mind these parameters: tasks related to the firm’s strategic and operational priorities need to be given precedence.
- Batch related activities together.
- Without considering whether a task is loved or hated, ask yourself this question: what is the best time for this task to be completed optimally? For example, schedule sales and client service activities for the peak periods in the day. Place planning tasks at the beginning of the week (for assignment) and the end (for reflection).
- Place each task into its best time block day by day.
- For unappealing tasks, spread out the work over several consecutive days in order to have bursts of focus and avoid drudgery.
- Important tasks are scheduled when execution will be crispest such as in the morning or the beginning of the week.
Connecting Time Budgets
At the end of each week, evaluate the results from the time budget with these thoughts in mind:
- If a task wasn’t completed, determine if it was from procrastination, interruptions, or insufficient allocated time.
- For repeating tasks week to week, consider if the results could have been better if allocated to a different time block.
- For the next time budget, experiment with different sequences and time periods.
- At the end of each month, compare the previous weeks’ time budgets and summarize the results achieved and the nuggets of learning.
- Take the monthly summaries and use them with the chain of command for the next period’s business planning as well as employee reviews.
A time budget is a guide to reinforce results (good behaviors) and to inform about weak spots (procrastination).
Few things are more satisfying than looking into the rearview mirror of a year’s set of time budgets and seeing significant business results, on-time delivery, improved efficiency, personal growth, and the absence of regret.
Kirk Loury is president of Advisable Wealth Engines and its affiliates including Wealth Planning Consulting Inc. He is a thought leader in adviser practice management, and investing and planning technology, and is a regular contributor to the FPA/Journal of Financial Planning Practice Management Blog.
This article originally appeared on the FPA/Journal of Financial Planning Practice Management Blog. Read more of Loury’s posts at PracticeManagementBlog.OneFPA.org.
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