In this episode, a CEO’s forced digital detox during a European vacation reveals how just two hours of focused work a day can unlock sharper priorities, empower your team, and expose the hidden cost of micromanagement.

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Welcome to Repeatable Revenue, hosted by strategic growth advisor , Ray J. Green.

About Ray:

→ Former Managing Director of National Small & Midsize Business at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he doubled revenue per sale in fundraising, led the first increase in SMB membership, co-built a national Mid-Market sales channel, and more.

→ Former CEO operator for several investor groups where he led turnarounds of recently acquired small businesses.

→ Current founder of MSP Sales Partners, where we currently help IT companies scale sales: www.MSPSalesPartners.com

→ Current Sales & Sales Management Expert in Residence at the world’s largest IT business mastermind.

→ Current Managing Partner of Repeatable Revenue Ventures, where we scale B2B companies we have equity in: www.RayJGreen.com

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A few weeks ago, I took my

family on a vacation to Europe.

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We went to Spain, we went to

Italy, we went to France, and

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this wasn't a, a work vacation.

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We actually do plenty of those.

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We travel quite a bit, and as long

as I've got, you know, a laptop

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and a wifi, I am, I'm pretty solid.

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Like this was the gonna be

an actual vacation, right?

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Because for the most part, I, I didn't

know if I was gonna have connectivity.

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Um, a lot of the normal

calls that I, I have.

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On my calendar, I wouldn't be able to

do because of the time zone difference.

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And our schedule was gonna

be unpredictable, right?

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And I didn't want to be on a, on a set

schedule, but I, I knew I'd have basically

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like an hour or two while I'm working

out each day to find some wifi and plug

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into the business and get shit done.

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So, you know, if you've, if you've

been around me or my content long

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enough, you know what I, I love Tim

Ferriss and I love the four hour work

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week, and I love lifestyle design.

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But if you actually look at my calendar.

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I, I suck at the four hour work week.

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Like I, I put in a lot of work and I put

in a lot of hours because, you know, I

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believe if you want to build something

significant and meaningful and you want

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to compress the timeline in doing that,

meaning you want to get there faster, like

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you're gonna have to work your ass off.

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Um, but what really surprised me about

this vacation and this trip was that

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being forced, at least temporarily,

like so, so being temporarily forced.

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To work less made me a better CEO and

the, the takeaway that I had was like, I

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created a constraint with this vacation

that actually forced some clarity out for

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me because, you know, when you've only

got one or two hours a day to work, your

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priorities get really clear, really fast.

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And like you, you get, you have

to get laser focused on what do

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I have to get done right now?

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Like, I've got 90 minutes to do this.

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What do I need to get done?

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And it, it's a forcing function to

get the most important and to a degree

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urgent, but like the most important

things to the top of the list.

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And I, there was no, you know,

checking Slack for the hell of it.

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There was no, let me catch up on emails.

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There was no, let me look at, you know,

some of the, the systems that we've got

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or the backend systems or you know, just

checking tasks that you know, oh, you

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know what, I forgot about doing this.

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Like none of that stuff.

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I didn't have time for it.

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Right.

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And, and so those things

didn't get any of my attention.

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And what I, what I realized,

especially coming back and, and

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sitting down, was I stopped reacting

to the noise within the business

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and I started filtering for signal.

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I.

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Right, like I forced, or I was forced

to, to only look at what was actually

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going to move the business forward.

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Like what are the critical issues,

the essential things that need to

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get focused today and or need to

get focused on today and not what's

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gonna make me feel productive, right?

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So like there's, I mean, if you're a

business owner, you know this, you can

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get to the end of the day, you can put

in 10, 12 hours and you can feel hyper.

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Productive in the sense that you

put in a lot of hours, but you still

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look back and you're like, did I

really move the needle forward?

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And this is a really good

way of identifying the

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things that have to get done.

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The high leverage, high impact activities.

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And it wasn't, it wasn't the result

of some productivity hack, right?

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Like it wasn't the, the result of

some calendar trick that I learned,

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like it was just forced on me.

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It was survival and the impact was.

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It really shaped or reinforced, I would

say the, the way that I think about

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time and leadership and leverage, right?

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Because the lessons that I'm,

that I'm sharing here, they

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weren't completely new, right?

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Like this, but it was, it was

refreshed, it was reinforced.

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And you know, there's a, there's

something called Parkinson's Law, right?

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Which is, um, you know, that

work expands to fill the time

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available for its completion.

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So if I give a, a presentation.

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16 hours on my calendar to get done.

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Chances are it's gonna take 16 hours.

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Right.

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Whereas if I say you only have

90 minutes and, and you have a

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constraint, that actually forces the

fact that you only have 90 minutes.

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You can get that presentation done in 90

minutes and you will hit the essentials.

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And this is.

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It's kinda like in, in school, you know,

when you cram, you know, like you, if

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you, if you start studying, at least

for myself, if I start studying weeks in

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advance, you know, I've done this before

where I start studying and then, you

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know, it takes me three weeks to basically

learn the same thing that I could learn

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in, you know, eight hours the day before.

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Right?

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So, so Parkinson's law says work

is going to take as much space

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on your calendar as you allow it.

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And this trip with my family because of.

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Lack of connectivity because of lack

of bandwidth and time and wanting to

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just focus on, you know, hanging out

with the family and spending time

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and experiencing like where we were.

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Like it forced me to flip

Parkinson's law on its head, right?

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Like it was, it's the opposite.

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So we compressed the schedule

down to, you know, one, two hours

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and that's all I had, right?

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So everything got contracted

and it got sharper.

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You know, there was, there was no fluff.

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There was no filler.

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It was, there was only enough time

to focus on high leverage execution.

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Right.

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And so that was one takeaway.

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The other thing that I, as I, as I was

thinking about this, was the, as as

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your time strengths, as, as you know, as

the, the, the, your calendar contracts,

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so does your grip on the business.

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And what I mean is the

more time that I have.

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The more I tend to clinging to

tasks that I could delegate.

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Right.

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Whereas being on this trip, you

know, I didn't have any choice.

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Like I, I had to let certain things

go and I had to look to my team

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and say, well, shit, like I've,

all I have is time to give you

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direction on what I need to get done.

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And all I have is time to coach and, and

give you some feedback or review what

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you're, what you're sending me instead of

controlling it instead of doing it myself.

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And that was actually a really good.

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Um, experience for my team, right?

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Because I, I, I was forced to push things

to them, to empower them to do things.

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And the result was they

made decisions on their own.

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They executed without

me being the bottleneck.

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They gained confidence because

they were like, Hey, I've

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gotta get this done my way.

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Ray is not gonna be able to

look at this before I send it.

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So, you know, they gained confidence.

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And then as a result, so did I.

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And I guess it, as it turns out,

your level of micromanagement is

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often in, in direct proportion.

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It's, it's, there's a directly

correlated to how much time

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you have to micromanage, right?

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So you take Parkinson's law,

which is like work will expand

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to the time that you give it.

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If you track it and you can press

the calendar, well then what are the

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things that tend to get tossed out?

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Well, one of 'em is micromanagement,

and I'm, I'm not by default

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like a, a micromanager.

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But it, there were a lot of things that

I typically would've either done myself.

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Or had more direct, like,

Hey, do it this way.

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You know, like step one, step two, step

three, and record a long loom video with

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very detailed, you know, instructions.

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Because I'm, I'm thinking that I'm

giving direction and I, I'm thinking

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that I'm giving coaching, but what I'm

really doing is I'm taking some of the

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decision making away and some of the

empowerment away from people on the team.

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When you don't have the time to do

it, you don't have the time to do it.

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You say, this is what the finish line

looks like, and then they go do it.

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Right?

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So that was, um.

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That was a, uh, a big,

a big lesson for me.

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So, you know, they,

all of this comes back.

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So I've, you know, I, I spend, you know,

a little more than a, a couple of weeks,

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you know, getting really focused on.

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What these high leverage, high impact

activities are, and then come back

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home and, and here's the cool part

is now that I'm back home and my

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calendar is, is full again, right?

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Like, now that I have the space, I like,

I've got, you know, eight, 10, if I

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need it 12 hours a day to, to do what I

need to, to move the business forward.

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The, the thing is, I've

kept that filter, right?

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I've, I've kept the filter of.

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Hey, let's, let's not start doing

all the stuff that I just didn't

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do for, for over a couple of weeks.

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Why don't I look at, now that I've got,

you know, six to eight more hours to, to

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focus, what are the other high leverage,

high impact things that I can do?

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Right?

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So I've added it back with more

firepower, I would say, and the.

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Uh, the clarity on what really moves

the business forward is, is really

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powerful and, and now I can use the

entire workday to double down on the

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biggest, most important things that

I should be doing, not necessarily

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that I'm holding that I shouldn't.

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Right?

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So like the, the two

hour constraint changed.

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Not just like how I was working for

a period of time, but it changed

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how I was, how I thought about some

of the work that I've been doing.

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And it's really been like a,

a turbocharger for, for me.

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And, you know, it would, so I mean,

my advice is like, if, if I wanted

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to make this actionable, it's like,

hey, can you do a two hour experiment?

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Right?

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Like, if you only had two hours a day

to work, what would you stop doing?

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And I know, like I've, I actually have a

friend of mine that, you know, has said,

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Hey, pretend it's four hour work week that

you've, you've only got X amount of times.

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And it's, it's so much more difficult

until you're really forced to do it.

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Um, but if you can create that

environment where you've really gotta

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think about, if I only had two hours,

like what would I stop doing right

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now and what would I double down on?

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Right, more and or more importantly,

if I only had two hours, what would

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really break in the business and what

would actually thrive in the business?

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And, and the answers might point you to

where you're potentially over involved

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as a, as a business owner, as a CEO,

uh, where you're under leveraged, um,

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or where you're holding onto stuff

that you know, really don't belong to.

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You don't belong to you because.

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One, somebody else could do it.

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Two, somebody else could

potentially do it better.

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And three, somebody else doing it

frees up your time to do stuff that

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you're uniquely qualified to do, right?

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So, you know, you don't, you don't

have to fly across the, you know,

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the world to, to run this experiment.

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Uh, but if you can compress your

calendar for a few days and, and take a

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step back and narrow your, your window

and narrow your focus and see what

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surfaces, um, it's, you know, it may be.

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I think a really good way to, to filter

what's truly important and what's needed

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to actually move forward and, um, and

move the business forward frankly.

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So, um, that's one of my lessons

or a couple of my lessons from

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that, from that trip that I just

wanted to, to pass on to you.

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And I, I hope it helps, and

this is probably something that

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I'll revisit because it's easy

to drift back into homeostasis.

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You know, if you've been like in a, in

a certain, uh, routine or a certain type

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of focus for a period of time, you know,

a couple weeks is like a good jolt.

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But it's easy to, to drift back.

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So this is as much for, for

me as it is for, for you, and

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um, I hope it helps Adios.