Revisiting How You Work

Work smarter, not harder. That’s what most business owners strive to do.

We start off with that goal, but life has a way of complicating things. One client needs something done a little different. Or this program doesn’t speak to that one, so we create a workaround and it takes an extra 15 minutes. Over a year, these little complications add up to a lot of time. These are prime opportunities to improve how you work.

To maintain efficiency, you will need to review how you work. We recommend performing a system review once a year by following these steps:

1. Assess how your current workflows are operating. Be open to if a new technology has emerged that changes how you used to think about that workflow.

2. Ask for feedback from your team and clientele. What do they like and what could be better.

3. Identify the common trends. These could be bottlenecks or complicated processes.

4. Prioritize what needs to change.

5. Implement changes one at a time.

At any point in the year, you may hear about an app that can improve a workflow. You don’t want to chase every new tech that hits the market. That is a sure way to complicate your systems. Instead, look up the app’s website and bookmark the page. If you hear more positive reviews and are focusing on that workflow often, you should revisit it in step 1.

Where most people struggle are with steps 4 and 5. You’ve identified all the ways you could work better. You feel way behind and like you need to fix everything now.

Don’t do it. Take a breath and remind yourself that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

When we try to do everything at once, we cut corners. Like how our minds are not wired to multi-task, we do more when we focus on one thing. If you are serious about improving your workflows you will get to everything in due time. Focus on the changes by what will have the biggest impact. Make one change at a time.

How often have you bought something and then not used it? The shiny new toy was exciting at first, but you soon lost interest. You didn’t spend the time to integrate it fully or learn all the functionalities. Then you have another need and buy another app. Later you learn the first app can do what the second one does. If only you had fully implemented the first one!

To get the most efficiency, take the time to fully implement one system at a time. The hours spent upfront will save you many more hours on the back-end. You’ll need to create fewer workarounds. Make that process work how you want it to. Once you’ve accomplished one implementation, do a little happy dance and move on to the next.

If our goal is to work smarter, we need to consider how we work. An annual review of how you work is an important step towards making your business efficient.

If you feel like you could be working smarter, let’s have a conversation. We will review your systems with an eye for creating efficiencies.