Three tips to reduce your operations burden
When the kids get out of school for the summer, they are filled with joy. The prospect of not going to school every day and having the same routine is exciting. The day or overnight camps, the vacations and adventures, even the spontaneous playdates are what make the summer amazing… for a kid.
For many parents, summer break feels like chaos. The routine is different every week. Your schedule is impacted by the change in drive times each week to get the kid to and from the camps. The spontaneous playdates do not feel so spontaneous when you have been texting with the parent for days to make the logistics work. Planning for vacations and adventures requires hours of prep and planning. Summer feels like an operations burden when the logistics to keep the family functioning are changing week by week.
Many business owners feel the same way about running their business. Each week brings added details to manage and new fires to fight. New issues to contend with come from all directions. Whether it is new taxes the state put into place or training a new team member on the CRM, you are pulled in different directions each day and week to keep your business functioning.
It is a lot for a business owner to carry the burden of operations. It can also feel like a lot to reduce that load.
While you may not be able to completely offload operations in a week, there are ways to find quick wins that can start reducing the load. Here are three steps you can take today to start reducing that burden.
Create email templates for common messages – As you are working through your email, create templates out of the messages you send frequently. Potential templates include scheduling requests, meeting confirmations, status updates, invoice follow-ups, and answers to frequently asked questions by prospects and employees. Once you have created the templates, you can leverage your assistant to send the templated emails as part of their work managing your inbox. Even without an assistant taking that on, you will reduce your time and energy thinking or hunting for the answers.
Use a scheduling tool to reduce emails – You can drastically reduce the number of emails you send with the use of a scheduling tool. There are countless tools out there that can get meetings on your calendar without the back and forth, including Calendly, OnceHub, and Acuity. These tools allow you to set up meeting structures, durations, and buffers so your calendar does not get overrun or compressed. Spending a short amount of time now to set up a scheduling tool will save time, energy, and emails in your inbox.
Block out time on your calendar for required operations tasks – Time blocking is a popular technique for managing time and ensures all the required activities are addressed. With operations tasks, blocking time each week to address required tasks ensures you will get them done. From reviewing and approving timecards or invoices, uploading receipts, or updating the website or social media, having a space when you know you will attend to whatever operations tasks are required reduces the burden of trying to figure out when you will fit it into your day.
As your business grows, you will need to leverage additional resources to take on operations tasks. Until you have the space or capacity to offload, there are things you can do to make operations a less daunting and time-consuming piece of your day.
Once you have started taking these small steps to reduce your load, you will want more ways to streamline your day to focus on delivering services and running your business. Reach out to Elevation Business Consulting for a complimentary conversation to explore what else you could do to streamline and improve your operations.