Working On vs In Your Business: Why the Difference Matters
Running a small business often feels like a juggling act. You’re answering emails, sending invoices, managing customer requests, and ticking off endless to-dos. These are all examples of working in your business – the hands-on tasks that keep things moving day to day. But to truly grow and steer your company forward, you also need to work on your business – the high-level planning, strategy, and system-building that drive long-term success. As the famous mantra goes, “work on your business, not just in it”. This distinction is more than semantic; it’s a crucial shift in focus that can make or break your business’s future.
Many small business owners spend long hours handling day-to-day operations. While these tasks keep the business running, focusing only on immediate needs can leave no time for strategic planning and growth. Balancing both aspects is key to sustainable success.
What Does It Mean to Work On vs In Your Business?
To work on your business means focusing on strategic activities – the big-picture decisions and plans you make as a leader to improve and grow your company. This includes things like developing a business strategy, streamlining processes, building a team, innovating new products or services, and setting goals for the future. In short, it’s about steering the ship.
In contrast, working in your business means handling the tactical, operational work that your business needs today. These are the hands-on tasks and firefighting: serving customers, processing orders, doing the bookkeeping, replying to inquiries – essentially keeping the ship afloat on a daily basis. Both types of work are important, but they serve different purposes.
Examples of Working In vs On Your Business:
- Working In (Tactical/Operational): Responding to customer emails, fulfilling orders, issuing invoices, fixing immediate problems, and managing daily employee schedules. These tasks maintain your current operations.
- Working On (Strategic/High-Level): Crafting your marketing strategy, analyzing financial trends, planning an expansion, training and delegating to staff, improving workflows, and setting quarterly or yearly goals. These activities build your business for the future.
If you find that every day is consumed by the first list and you rarely get to the second, you’re not alone – and that imbalance can hold your business back.
The Small Business Owner’s Trap: Stuck In the Business
For many entrepreneurs (especially in Canada’s small business community), it’s easy to get trapped in the day-to-day whirlwind of operations. You wear multiple hats by necessity – “often Jacks and Jills of all trades”, handling everything from sales and customer service to accounting and even cleaning. In fact, a Canadian survey found that two-thirds (67%) of small business leaders are experiencing burnout, which isn’t surprising given how many roles they juggle daily. This working in the business mode is usually necessary in the early days – you have to do it all to get off the ground – but if it continues indefinitely, it becomes a barrier to growth.
Consider the numbers: The average Canadian small business owner works about 54 hours a week, essentially an eight-day workweek for a typical salaried employee. Those facing labor shortages work even more (around 59 hours a week), with a third of that time spent just covering for missing staff. That’s hundreds of extra hours spent plugging holes in daily operations. “This is a lot of time that business owners could spend on other priorities such as growing their business,” notes one report – instead, owners use it up dealing with immediate issues. In the vivid words of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, “Instead of being captains who keep their ships on course, [many] business owners are having to paddle just to stay afloat.” In other words, when you’re too busy bailing water (dealing with everyday tasks), you can’t effectively steer the ship toward a better destination.
Administrative overload only adds to the trap. In 2024, Canadian small businesses spent on average 735 hours a year on regulatory compliance, with about 256 hours of that considered excess “red tape” that could be eliminated. That’s roughly 32 full business days lost to paperwork and bureaucracy. “Business owners lose an entire month’s worth of productivity to filling out forms and navigating government websites – crucial time that could be better spent on training staff, planning business expansions, serving customers or even spending time with family,” one research director observed. All this illustrates how easily a small business owner’s schedule gets eaten up by in-the-business work, leaving little or no bandwidth to think about strategy or growth.
The cost of staying in this grind isn’t just stress (though burnout is real). It also shows up as missed opportunities. If you’re always in reactive mode – putting out fires, responding to immediate demands – you might never get around to proactive initiatives like exploring a new market, adopting a more efficient technology, or creating a plan to increase your customer base. Over time, the lack of strategic direction can cause your business to stagnate. As one expert put it, “If you decide not to grow, you may be paving a path to failure. If you don’t grow, your competitors will, and that will put pressure on you.” In short, ignoring the on-the-business work is perilous; you risk treading water while others sail ahead.
Why Working On Your Business Drives Real Growth
Focusing on working on the business is not a luxury – it’s a necessity for sustainable success. Strategic activities are what enable you to break out of the survival cycle and build a business that can thrive in the long run. Here are a few key reasons why carving out time for high-level work pays off:
1. Clarity of Direction:
When you step back to work on strategy, you define where you want your business to go. That might involve setting a three-year vision, mapping out a growth plan, or identifying your competitive niche. Without this direction, even a hard-working business can drift. In fact, many entrepreneurs admit they rarely sit down to plan their company’s future growth – but “growth is an issue business owners ignore at their peril”. Taking time to plan can reveal opportunities and threats you otherwise miss. It’s often said that failing to plan is planning to fail, and this holds true in business.
2. Better Use of Owner’s Time:
Your time is the most precious resource in a small business. Every hour you spend on routine tasks is an hour not spent on strategic improvements. By reallocating even a portion of your week to higher-level work, you can make impactful changes. Think of it this way: one hour spent training an employee today could save you dozens of hours in the future because that employee can take over a task. One afternoon spent analyzing why sales are down could lead to a pivot that doubles your revenue next year. Working on the business multiplies the value of your time. As an example, studies suggest that reducing time spent on low-value administrative tasks would free owners to focus on growth and innovation, directly boosting productivity and competitiveness.
3. Building a Self-Sustaining Company:
Ultimately, the goal of working on your business is to create an enterprise that can run without your constant involvement. This doesn’t mean you step away completely or stop caring – rather, it means putting in place the systems, team, and processes that allow the business to operate smoothly even when you’re not handling every detail. If your business can’t function when you’re not there or if every decision bottlenecks at you, growth will always be limited by your personal capacity. By contrast, a business with well-trained managers, documented procedures, and a clear strategy can scale up and weather challenges more easily. It also makes the business more valuable (and sellable) since it’s not entirely dependent on the owner. Creating a self-sufficient business is a classic payoff of working on it: you shift from being your business’s most overworked employee to being its leader and navigator.
4. Improved Work-Life Balance:
Ironically, investing time in strategy and systems can give you your life back. Many entrepreneurs start a business for freedom or passion, but end up chained to the business because they never transitioned out of the technician role. By working on the business – hiring help, delegating, scheduling your priorities – you can reclaim some personal time without sacrificing success. As one business coach notes, making this shift is “the key to gaining the freedom you’re searching for as an entrepreneur,” whether that’s the freedom to attend your kids’ soccer games or to finally take a vacation without worry. In the long run, a well-run business should support your life, not consume it.
How to Start Working On Your Business (Without Neglecting the In)
You might be thinking: “This sounds great in theory, but I have to keep the daily operations going. How can I possibly step back?” Indeed, small business owners can’t simply abandon working in the business – nor should they. The goal is to find the right balance and gradually shift your focus. Think of it as steadily turning your attention toward the horizon while still steering the wheel. Here are some strategies to blend both and make more room for on-the-business work:
1. Schedule Strategic Time – and Protect It:
Just as you schedule time to run payroll or meet clients, schedule regular appointments with yourself to work on big-picture items. It could be an hour every day or a half-day each week dedicated solely to planning, reviewing goals, and thinking about improvements. The Business Development Bank of Canada recommends blocking out time in your calendar for weekly, monthly, and quarterly planning sessions. Treat these like important meetings that cannot be canceled. If you don’t carve out this time, something urgent will inevitably pop up and take priority. For example, Friday afternoons might be set for reviewing the week’s performance and prepping for the week ahead, while the last Friday of the month is for a deeper dive into strategy and finances. When the appointed time comes, resist the urge to dive back into routine tasks – use it to focus on your business’s direction.
2. Delegate and Build a Strong Team:
Delegation is often the turning point between being stuck in the business and rising above it. It can be tough for hands-on entrepreneurs to let go, but freeing yourself from certain tasks is crucial. Identify tasks that someone else can do 80% as well as you (or better!) and train your team or hire staff to take those over. This might mean bringing on an administrative assistant to handle invoicing or outsourcing your bookkeeping. “Hire good people and trust them,” advises one Canadian business leader. “Let your people work, while you spend more time thinking about your strategic focus and your next move.” In practical terms, start small: pick one routine task you do every day, document the process, and delegate it. Over time, continue transferring responsibilities so you can focus on higher-level decision-making. Remember, leadership is about guiding your business, not micromanaging every detail. When you empower your team to handle operations, you move from being the hardest-working employee to being the captain of the ship.
3. Systematize and Streamline Operations:
One reason owners get sucked into daily minutiae is that their business lacks systems that run smoothly without intervention. If every decision or approval requires your input, or if processes are ad-hoc, you’ll be forever needed on the front lines. Combat this by creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and checklists for recurring activities – from how to handle customer inquiries to how inventory is reordered. When processes are well-documented and standardized, your team can follow them without constant guidance. Additionally, leverage technology and automation where possible. For instance, use a customer relationship management (CRM) system to automate follow-up emails or an e-commerce platform that auto-updates stock levels. These tools can take mundane tasks off your plate, ensuring important things still get done while freeing up your time. Regularly review your operations for bottlenecks that eat your time and ask, “How can this run without me?” The more your business runs on well-oiled systems, the less it relies on your constant presence.
4. Keep the Big Picture in Focus (Vision and Goals):
Working on your business also means not losing sight of why you’re doing all this. Take time to clarify your long-term vision: What do you want your company to look like in 5 years? How do you envision your role? Set clear goals that excite you and align with that vision – maybe it’s expanding to a second location, reaching a certain revenue milestone, or launching a new product line. Writing down these strategic goals and tracking progress can motivate you to stick with strategic work. It also helps you prioritize: when you know your goal is, say, to increase online sales by 20% this year, you can focus your on-business time on projects that achieve that (like improving your website or online marketing) and feel less guilty about handing off lower-priority tasks. A clear vision and goals ensure that when you do step out of the day-to-day, you’re using that time effectively to move the needle for your business.
5. Blend On and In: Small Steps, Consistent Habit:
Finally, recognize that this is not an all-or-nothing shift, but a gradual rebalancing. Early on, you might spend 90% of your time running the daily operations and only 10% on strategy. Aim to shift that ratio over time – perhaps 80/20, then 70/30, and so on – as your team and systems shoulder more of the daily load. Even setting aside 5 hours a week for strategic work can start yielding benefits. Use that time to tackle one improvement at a time. For example, one week you might review your pricing strategy, another week sketch out a social media plan, another week research a new software tool. Treat these as important appointments with your business’s future. Over weeks and months, these small increments of working on the business add up to significant progress. The key is consistency – make it a habit, and soon you’ll notice your perspective shifting. Instead of constantly firefighting, you’ll start anticipating fires before they spark.
Final Thoughts!
In the end, working on vs in your business isn’t an either-or — it’s about balance. The daily grind keeps the lights on, but strategy keeps you moving forward. Think of it like rowing and steering a boat: you need both to stay on course.
With a mindset shift and some practical steps — delegating, systematizing, and setting aside planning time — you can free yourself from the weeds and focus on the bigger picture. Your business needs more than just hard work; it needs your vision and leadership. By working on your business, you stop treading water and start steering toward real growth.
References
- Working ON the Business vs IN the Business | Systems Business Coach
- How to Stop Working IN Your Business and Start Working ON It! | Avid ActionCOACH
- Two-Thirds of Canadian Small Business Leaders Are Feeling Burnout; Younger Leaders Particularly Impacted – Harris Poll
- The 8-day workweek: Small business owners clock in 59 hours a week to make up for labour shortages
- Small businesses spend over 250 hours or 32 business days a year wrapped up in red tape – CFIB
- Growing a small business: Your growth plan | BDC.ca
- Time management secrets for busy entrepreneurs | BDC.ca
