If you’ve ever looked at another entrepreneur and wondered how they manage to get it all done, the answer might surprise you.
It's not that they have more time. They've got good systems.
It’s true. The most productive people all have one thing in common: they don’t reinvent the wheel every day. Instead, they’ve figured out the best, most efficient way to do every task, and they create a system to do just that.
No matter what business you’re in and what projects you find yourself tackling, a systemized approach will help you:
- Work faster and produce more
- Produce higher quality results with fewer mistakes
- Easily outsource the tasks you don’t like to do
- The Magic of Templates
How many times do you answer email from customers? What about responding to customer complaints? Or mailing your JV partners about an upcoming launch?
All of these tasks and more become effortless when you create fill-in-the-blank templates that can be repurposed for specific cases/people. Templates can be as simple as a “canned response” in your email client or help desk, or you can use software such as Text Expander (for Mac) or Phrase Express (for Windows). You might even create a template document in Dropbox or Google Drive to house all your templates for easier access.
I have to admit I love that little feature in Gmail where it guesses my response – if it’s a short one, like, “Awesome! Thank you!” I can just click the button and move along.
While templates will undoubtedly save you time, the real beauty is that once they’re created, you can easily outsource things like email and even sales. Simply instruct your assistant on the proper use of your templates, and you’ll be free to do other, more important things.
Checklists Prevent Mistakes
It might seem counterintuitive, but when you perform the same tasks over and over again, it’s easy to miss a critical step. You might think you paid your affiliates this month—you might even remember doing it—only to look back and see it was never completed.
But when you implement checklists, it’s suddenly much more difficult to miss an important task. This is why I love Kevin Fahey’s checklists so much – his are the best, hands down.
But you can easily create your own checklists for all your common tasks and projects using nothing more than a text document. If you’re managing a team, checklists in your project management system allow you to see exactly what tasks are complete, and which are still outstanding.
Templates and checklists turn smart business owners into productivity superstars, and it’s easy to get started. The next time you answer an email you’ve answered before, save your response. The next time you set up a new product in your shopping cart or create a new opt-in page, take the time to record the steps. These documents will make future projects easier and faster to complete, and best of all, when you grow your business, you can hand them off to your assistant to do
instead.
Okay let's test this new block element feature out. I didn't enjoy it. The formatting floating bar covers up what I said above whatever it is I'm writing, and that's annoying. But I'll deal with it. Grumble, grumble.
Tiff ;)
P.S. Prefer a weekly digest?
http://www.tiffanylambert.com/weeklytiff.html