Inspired by: Dan Martell’s Buy Back Your Time (time audit, DRIP matrix, Buyback Rate, playbooks); Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method (result, purpose, action plan). Repackaged in our own words for UK founders.
No links in this guide are paid. New Business HQ is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Dan Martell, Tony Robbins, the Jim Rohn organisation or any author mentioned. Ideas are summarised and repackaged in our own words; short quotes are attributed with a link to their source.
In your first year you are the salesperson, the bookkeeper, the delivery team and the tea maker. Time management is not about squeezing more in. It is about deciding what only you should be doing.
Audit your time for one week
Dan Martell, in his book Buy Back Your Time, starts with a simple time audit. For one or two weeks, note what you do in each block of your working day. Then mark each task with two things: does it make money for the business, and does it give you energy or drain it?
Keep it rough. A notebook or a note on your phone is fine. The point is to see your real week, not the one you imagine.
Sort your tasks into four groups
Martell sorts tasks into four groups, which he calls the DRIP matrix. In our own words:
- Delegate: low value and draining. Booking appointments, chasing small admin, inbox sorting.
- Replace: valuable but draining. Work that matters but that someone else could own one day, such as bookkeeping or customer support.
- Invest: energising but not paying yet. Learning, networking, building relationships.
- Produce: valuable and energising. The work you are best at and that brings money in.
The goal over time is to spend more of your week in the last group. In year one you may not be able to hire anyone, and that is fine. You can still automate, simplify or batch the tasks in the first group.
Know what an hour of your time is worth
Martell suggests working out your effective hourly rate and then a lower “buyback rate”, the price at which paying someone else for a task makes sense. His book gives a specific formula. For a new founder, the useful idea is simpler: if you could pay a modest sum to remove a task you dread, and spend that hour selling or serving customers instead, it may pay for itself.
Low-cost ways to buy back time early on include accounting software that matches bank transactions, online booking tools, and a card reader whose payouts reconcile easily with your records. Our guide to payout speed and cash flow covers that last one.
Write it down once: simple playbooks
Before you can hand anything off, it has to be written down. Martell’s approach is to record yourself doing the task once, narrating as you go, then turn that into written steps, a note of how often it happens, and a short checklist of what “done” looks like.
Even if you never hire, this helps. A written process for sending invoices or setting up a market stall means you stop rethinking it every time.
Plan around results, not to-do lists
Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method asks three questions before you plan your week: what result do I want, why does it matter, and what actions will get me there? A to-do list tells you what is urgent. A result tells you what is important.
“Where focus goes, energy flows.”Tony Robbins, quoted on tonyrobbins.com, “How to discover your peak state”
Each Sunday or Monday morning, write down no more than three results for the week. For example: “Five new customers booked”, “Accounts up to date”, “Website live”. Under each, write the reason it matters and the few actions that move it forward. Then schedule those actions first.
Protect your focus
- Block your best two hours of the day for “produce” work and treat them like a customer appointment.
- Batch email and messages into two or three set times rather than checking all day.
- Turn off non-essential notifications during focus blocks.
- Keep a “parking list” for ideas that pop up, so you can return to them later.
A first-year example
Tom runs a new café in Bristol. His time audit shows he spends hours each week chasing supplier invoices and rewriting the rota by hand. Neither earns money, and both drain him. He sets up a shared rota template and moves supplier payments to a fixed weekly slot. That frees time for what he enjoys and what brings customers back: menu ideas and local partnerships. He writes a one-page playbook for opening up so a part-time team member can do Saturdays.
Common time traps in year one
Martell describes a set of habits that stop founders handing work off. In our own words, watch out for these:
- Waiting for the perfect moment. There is never an ideal time to set up a system. Start with the smallest one.
- “It’s quicker if I do it.” True the first time, rarely true the twentieth.
- Handing over the task but not the decision. If every small choice still comes back to you, you have not saved much time.
- Seeing help only as a cost. Paying for a tool or a few hours of help can be an exchange for time you put into earning.
- Hiding in busywork. Tidying files can feel productive while the harder job, like calling a potential customer, waits.
Most founders recognise at least one of these. Naming yours makes it easier to catch.
Start with your inbox and calendar
Martell argues that an assistant who manages email and calendar is one of the first things that gives a founder their days back. In year one, you can borrow the idea without hiring: set up email filters and templates for common replies, use an online booking link so customers can choose a slot themselves, and set fixed times for admin. When the business can afford it, a few hours a week of virtual assistant support is often the first time you can buy back.
Your time checklist
- Track your time for one week.
- Sort every task into delegate, replace, invest or produce.
- Pick one draining task to automate, simplify or hand off this month.
- Write a short playbook for one task you repeat weekly.
- Set three results for next week, each with a reason and actions.
- Block a daily focus window and protect it.
Further reading
If you want to go deeper, these books cover the original ideas (we earn nothing if you buy them):
- Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time
- Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
More free guides
- Founder mindset & confidence
- Avoiding burnout & wellbeing
- Money confidence for founders
- Building good habits
- Goal setting for your first year
- Fitness & nutrition for busy founders
- Dealing with setbacks
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Last updated 29 October 2026. General information only, not professional advice.