Ok, so I threw a hammer… (Twice)

Ok, so I threw a hammer… (Twice)

Hey there!

Every Tuesday night I meet with a group of entrepreneurs. It’s one of those spaces where we get pushed to stretch, question, and grow. This week the challenge was a full time audit. The instructions were simple: track your day, hour by hour, for an entire week. At the end, “find” 10 hours you can Eliminate, Delegate, or Automate.

On paper, it sounded straightforward. In practice, it was uncomfortable. When you actually write down what you do each hour, you start to see the leaks:

• The “just a minute” scroll on social media that eats half an hour.
• The random errands that chop your day into pieces.
• The dishes, laundry, or house tasks that slip into prime work time.
• Meetings scheduled at the wrong time of day that derail your flow.

It’s eye-opening—and honestly a little humbling—to realize how much time you spend on thingsthat don’t move the needle.

This all came crashing into real life for me on Sunday.

We’d just wrapped up the Golden City Days ball tournament here in Rossland. It’s an amazing event—volunteers, community, charity—worth every bit of the Friday night and all-day Saturday it took up. But that left Sunday to “catch up” on everything else.

Now, if you’ve been following along, you know we’re knee-deep in renovations at the Grafton household. We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and this weekend I decided to tackle the cedar T&G planks on our deck.

Here’s the problem: I had no patience for it. Every bad piece of wood, every mistake, every interruption—it all set me off. And with that time audit echoing in my head, the truth was crystal clear: I could be doing a million better things with my time. Things that push my business forward. Things that recharge me. Things that light me up.

But instead, there I was, sweating, frustrated, wasting energy on something that didn’t matter.

So when one last little thing went wrong, I snapped. I chucked the hammer across the yard. Twice. Then I put the tools away, slammed the shop door shut, and walked off steaming.

Thankfully, my wife was home. She gave me the reality check I needed: “Why are you even doing this? We hired contractors. They’re supposed to finish the job. You don’t need to be out here.” And she was right. I didn’t need to be out there. I was stealing time from myself. That’s when it clicked.

We all do this. We all spend hours on things that drain us, distract us, or pull us away from what really matters. But the truth is, you don’t have to. You can choose to Eliminate. You can Delegate. You can Automate.

So here’s my challenge for you: this week, grab a notebook and track what you do, hour by hour.Be brutally honest. At the end, look at where your time goes. What drains you vs. what energizes you? What tasks could you give to an assistant or VA? What can you scrap completely? And with AI at our fingertips, what can you automate so you can focus on what lights you up?

I promise—if you do this—you’ll uncover hours you didn’t realize you had. And those hours are where your life and business change.

Til tomorrow,

Ryan

Copyright © 2025  Grafton Capital Group, All rights reserved.

Our email address is:
ryan@graftoncapitalgroup.com