David runs a fast-growing marketing agency. Twenty-five production staff (designers, developers, marketers, and project managers), fifteen salespeople, over a hundred SEO and PPC clients.

When he met with his coach, he was exhausted. Working 70-hour weeks. Couldn't take a vacation. Every day felt like crisis management.

"I know I need to think strategically," he told his coach. "But I don't have time. A campaign goes down. A client is angry about their results. Someone on the team has a crisis. How am I supposed to plan for five years from now when I can't even plan for tomorrow?"

Here's what I would tell David today: You can't.

Not because strategic thinking isn't important. But because he was asking the wrong question.

The question isn't "How do I find time to think long-term?" The question is: "How do I think about all three time horizons simultaneously, so that today's decisions build the future I actually want?"

Six months later, David was working 45-hour weeks. He took a much needed vacation. The business was more productive than ever.

What changed? He stopped thinking about time as either/or. He started thinking about it as both/and. He could work forward from what needed to happen today AND work backwards from where he needed to be in three years.

I know this because David was me.

Let me show you how I addressed this challenge.

The Dillema: Thinking Only About One Type of Time

There are three ways businesses think about time. Most get trapped in just one:

• The Firefighter: Lives entirely in the present. Every day is reactive. You're solving today's problems, fulfilling today's orders, answering today's emails. You're busy, but you're not building anything. Three years from now, you'll be doing the exact same thing. Just more tired.

• The Dreamer: Lives entirely in the future. You've got vision boards, five-year plans, big ambitious goals. But when Monday comes, you don't know what to actually DO. The gap between vision and action is so wide you can't bridge it. Your dreams stay dreams.

• The Trapped Operator: Lives in "the messy middle." You're managing this quarter, this project, this campaign. You're beyond firefighting but not truly building. You're checking boxes, but you're not sure the boxes matter. It feels productive but somehow empty.

Here's the truth: most goal-setting advice doesn't make obvious: All three approaches will kill your business.

The firefighter burns out. The dreamer never launches. The trapped operator builds a job that owns them instead of a business they own.

What successful small business owners do differently is they think in three time horizons at once, and they give each one the right amount of attention.

The Three Time Horizons: Your Business Needs All Three

Think of time in your business across three horizons:

Horizon 1: Operational (Your Immediate Focus)

This is execution mode. What needs to happen this week, this month, this quarter to keep your business running and moving forward?

This isn't firefighting—it's intentional operation. You're fulfilling orders, serving customers, managing cash flow, executing your marketing plan, hitting your near-term targets.

What it looks like: Your daily task list. Your weekly team meetings. Your monthly financial review. The systems and habits that keep the engine running.

The danger: If you live only here, you never build leverage. You're trapped in the operator role forever.

Horizon 2: Strategic (The Messy Middle)

This is building mode. What needs to change in the coming months or year to transform how your business works?

This is where you build systems, launch new offerings, hire key people, enter new markets, eliminate bottlenecks. You're not just running the business. You're improving the business.

What it looks like: Quarterly planning sessions. Strategic reviews. The project that will change how you deliver your service. The hire that will take work off your plate. The process you're documenting so you can delegate it.

The danger: If you skip this horizon, you stay stuck. Your business plateaus. You're working IN it, never ON it.

Horizon 3: Visionary (The Strategic Future)

This is direction mode. Where is your business headed? What's the big picture? What are you building toward?

This isn't fantasy. It's the North Star that guides your strategic decisions. It's the answer to: "If everything goes right, what does this business look like in the future? And more importantly, what does MY LIFE look like?"

What it looks like: Your vision for the business. The lifestyle you're building. The impact you want to have. The exit strategy or legacy plan. The big "what if?" questions.

The danger: If you skip this horizon, you build something you don't actually want. You optimize for the wrong things. You wake up successful by someone else's definition and miserable by your own.

An Important Note on Your Time Horizons

The specific time periods matter less than the relationship between them. The key is having three distinct horizons: your now (immediate execution), your next (building and improvement), and your future (direction and vision).

For a fast-moving tech startup, that might be: this sprint (now), this quarter (next), 18 months out (future). For a mature professional services firm, it might be: this quarter (now), this year (next), 5 years out (future). For an AI-focused business in 2025, your strategic future might only be 2-3 years because the landscape is shifting so rapidly.

What matters is that you can clearly answer: What am I executing today? What am I building toward in the medium term? Where does this all lead?

Choose time horizons that make sense for your business, your industry, and how fast things change in your world. Then stick with them long enough to actually build something.

Why Small Businesses Struggle: The Time Horizon Trap

Here's what I was experiencing—and what most small business owners face:

I spent 90% of my time in Horizon 1 (operational). Putting out fires. Handling emergencies. Responding to whatever was loudest.

I spent 9% of my time in Horizon 2 (strategic). Occasionally thinking about "I should really hire someone" or "I need to fix this process." But never actually doing it because Horizon 1 was always screaming.

I spent 1% of my time in Horizon 3 (visionary). Usually late at night, exhausted, wondering "Is this what I signed up for?"

The result? The business ran me. I didn't run the business.

The fix wasn't working harder. It was redistributing my attention across all three horizons—and building systems that connected them.

The Anchor Question: Which Horizon Are You Neglecting?

Here's a quick assessment to figure out which time horizon is costing you the most:

Ask yourself these three questions:

"If I took a one-week vacation with no phone, would progress continue without me?"

If the answer is no → You're neglecting Horizon 2 (strategic). You haven't built systems. Everything depends on you to move forward.

"Can I name three specific goals I'm trying to hit in the next 90 days?"

If the answer is no → You're neglecting Horizon 1 (operational). You're not executing with intention. You're drifting.

"Do I know what I want my life to look like three years from now, and is my current business plan building toward that?"

If the answer is no → You're neglecting Horizon 3 (visionary). You're building something, but you don't know if it's what you actually want.

Note: This is the question most business owners don’t ask because they're so deep in the day-to-day, they lose the connection between the business and why they started it in the first place. But understanding this about yourself will also make you a better manager. Your employees aren't coming to work to make you successful, they're coming to build the life they want. You're not their life coach, but when you understand that basic human truth, you stop managing like everything is systems and machinery. You start managing the organism—people with their own motivations, their own horizons, their own reasons for showing up.

Most small business owners fail question 1 or question 3. Usually both.

They're executing (Horizon 1) but not building (Horizon 2) and not directing (Horizon 3).

The result? A business that demands everything and delivers a life you didn't choose. And here's what makes it worse: when you can't connect to your own motivations, you can't understand anyone else's either. You keep trying to optimize the machine when you should be cultivating the organism. That's when management becomes a constant struggle instead of something that actually works.

The Organic Truth: Time Horizons Are Connected, Not Separate

Here is an important nugget that most time management advice does not always tell you: You shouldn't treat the three horizons as separate buckets.

"Block time for strategic thinking on Fridays." "Do vision planning once a year." "Focus on operations the rest of the time."

That doesn't work for small business owners. You don't have the luxury of dedicated strategic time. Life doesn't pause while you plan.

Instead, you need to think about how these horizons connect:

• Your Horizon 3 vision informs your Horizon 2 strategy. If your five-year vision is "run the business from anywhere," then your strategic projects should be "document every process" and "hire a COO," not "open a second location."

• Your Horizon 2 strategy determines your Horizon 1 operations. If your quarterly goal is "launch the new service," then your daily tasks should build toward that, not just maintain the status quo.

• Your Horizon 1 execution reveals what needs to change in Horizon 2. If you're drowning in customer service requests every day, that's not just an operational problem. It's a strategic signal that you need better systems or different customers.

The three horizons are symbiotic. They're nested. Each one feeds the others.

When you see them this way, you stop feeling guilty about "not thinking strategically enough." Because you ARE thinking strategically—every time you ask: "Does this daily decision move me toward my quarterly goal? Does this quarterly goal move me toward my long-term vision?"

Real Business Translation: What This Looks Like in Practice

Let me show you how I restructured my thinking:

Horizon 3 (Vision): In five years, I wanted to manage operations 25 hours a week and take three weeks of vacation annually. I wanted to build systems that could run without me constantly intervening.

Horizon 2 (Strategic - This Year): To get there, I needed to:

• Hire a Lieutenant who could handle day-to-day client issues without me

• Document every core process so they were trainable across the team

• Implement a CRM so client relationships didn't depend on institutional knowledge

• Build workflow systems that supported our growth without adding chaos

Horizon 1 (Operational - This Quarter): That quarter, I focused on:

• Document the client onboarding process (2 hours/week)

• Interview candidates for a director of production (3 hours/week)

• Track our actual team capacity to inform better project scoping (1 hour/week)

See how they connect? My daily choices (Horizon 1) were building toward my strategic projects (Horizon 2), which were creating my desired future (Horizon 3).

I wasn't sacrificing today for tomorrow. I was using today to BUILD tomorrow.

Your Planning System: Giving Each Horizon Its Due

You don't need to spend equal time on each horizon. You need to spend appropriate time on each horizon.

Here is how I would recommend distributing the time, whether you're a business owner, a department lead, or even the lead of a small team.

• 70% Horizon 1 (Operational) - Most of your time is execution. Running the business. Serving customers. Managing the team. This is right. This is your job.

• 25% Horizon 2 (Strategic) - A meaningful chunk of time is building. Improving systems. Working on the business. Making it better than it was last quarter.

• 5% Horizon 3 (Visionary) - A small but crucial amount of time is checking direction. Making sure you're building what you actually want.

Now, how do you actually do this without adding hours to your week?

For Horizon 1 (Operational):

Weekly planning session: 30 minutes every Sunday or Monday. What are my top 3 goals this week?

Daily priority check: 5 minutes every morning. What's the ONE thing that matters most today?

For Horizon 2 (Strategic):

Quarterly planning day: 4 hours every 90 days. What are we building this quarter?

Monthly review: 1 hour at month-end. What's working? What's not? What needs to change?

Weekly strategic block: 2-3 hours of protected time for project work—the stuff that improves the business, not just runs it.

For Horizon 3 (Visionary):

Annual vision session: One full day per year. Where am I headed? Is this still what I want?

Quarterly vision check: 30 minutes every quarter. Is my strategy still aligned with my vision?

Total time investment: About 4-5 hours per week beyond your normal operations. That's roughly 10% of a 40-hour week.

That 10% is what transforms you from operator to owner.

First Things First: Map Your Current Reality

Before you can balance the three horizons, you need to see where your time actually goes.

Here's what to do:

Track one week honestly. For the next five business days, at the end of each day, categorize your time:

• Horizon 1 (Operational): Time spent executing today's work—serving customers, fulfilling orders, responding to emails, managing daily operations

• Horizon 2 (Strategic): Time spent building systems, working on process improvements, planning, hiring, training, working ON the business

• Horizon 3 (Visionary): Time spent thinking about long-term direction, vision, what you're building toward

• Reactive/Firefighting: Time spent on unexpected problems, crises, or work that shouldn't exist with better systems

Be brutally honest. Most people discover they're 80-90% Horizon 1, 10% Reactive, and 0-5% combined Horizon 2 and 3.

That's your starting point.

The goal isn't to flip this overnight. It's to gradually shift: spend less time firefighting, maintain your operational excellence, and carve out meaningful space for strategic and visionary thinking.

Even moving from 85% Horizon 1 to 75% Horizon 1 (and using that 10% for Horizon 2) transforms your business within a year.

Putting It All Together

My transformation wasn't about finding more hours in the day or suddenly becoming more strategic. It was about understanding that the three time horizons aren't separate—they're connected. Every operational decision either builds toward or undermines your strategic goals.

Every strategic project either supports or sabotages your long-term vision. You probably feel torn between today and tomorrow because you're trying to choose. But you don't have to choose. You have to connect.

When you see how Horizon 1 execution feeds Horizon 2 strategy, which builds toward Horizon 3 vision, you stop feeling guilty about "not being strategic enough." Because you ARE being strategic—every time you ask whether today's work is building the future you actually want.

Thriving long-term isn't about sacrificing today for tomorrow or tomorrow for today. Use today to build tomorrow. Get the three time horizons right, and you stop feeling torn. You start seeing how execution and strategy are two sides of the same coin.

Start Your Weekly Planning With All Three Horizons: Don't just list tasks. Ask: "What's my top operational priority this week? What's one strategic project I'll move forward? Does this week's work align with my long-term vision?" This takes 2 extra minutes and transforms how you see your week.

Create a "Strategic Hour" Before It's Urgent: Most business owners only think strategically when forced to—when something breaks or a crisis hits. Instead, block 2-3 hours every week for Horizon 2 work BEFORE you need it. Protect it like a client meeting. This is where you build the systems that eventually free you.

Do an Annual Vision Check, Not Just Financial Review: Once a year, spend a full day asking: "Is this business creating the life I want?" Review your financials, yes—but also review your time, your energy, your relationships, your health. If your business is profitable but you're miserable, your Horizon 3 vision needs recalibration.

"Am I so busy executing today that I'm not building tomorrow?" This reveals whether you're trapped in the operator role. If you can't name a single system you're improving or building this quarter, you're running in place.

"Do I know where I'm going—and are my daily actions actually taking me there?" This reveals whether your three horizons are aligned. If your vision is freedom but your daily choices are adding more dependencies on you, you're building the wrong thing.

You don't need to choose between running your business today and building your business for tomorrow. You need to see how today's decisions create tomorrow's reality. Get the three time horizons right, and you stop feeling torn between execution and strategy. You start seeing how they're the same thing.