As a busy professional it often seems like you are being pulled in a million directions at once. There are always so many tasks competing for your time. If your business feels like complete chaos, it’s likely you need some business A.D.D. When business gets chaotic, take a step back and make a list of everything you’re doing and ask yourself these three questions. What can I automate? What can I delegate? And what can I delete?
Automate
There are many processes you can automate in your business to help save you time and money. A few common ones we see a lot are:
- Email marketing (Mailchimp)
- Workflow (Insightly)
- Data Collection (Google Forms)
- Surveys (SurveyMonkey)
- Scheduling (Calendly)
There is so much technology out there. Find out how to use it to make your life easier! We were spending hours emailing back and forth to schedule clients. By using a service like Calendly we were able to let people schedule a time that worked best for them based on our predetermined availability.
When you are looking at processes to automate your business, consider whether they can integrate with each other. Integration saves you additional time, and can help further streamline your processes. Anytime that you can rely on automation to do the job for you, you free yourself and your team up to focus on the most pressing tasks in your business.
Delegate
You have probably been given the advice that you need to delegate time and time again, but do you actually follow through and do it? Many business owners struggle with thinking that they will just handle small tasks because it would take just as long to delegate to someone else. However, this leads to getting trapped in a cycle of menial tasks, and not working towards your biggest goals.
When you’re doing something that you could pay someone $10 an hour to do, at that time, your time is worth $10 an hour. Don’t get caught in the trap of saying “I’ll just do it quick.” All of those little quick things add up into a lot of time wasted. Create a good system for whoever you’re delegating to follow. If you have a great system, they can’t help but succeed.
Here’s a tip! One of the biggest mistakes people make is to delegate tasks that are too big. Keep your tasks to things they can do in one hour or less and can check off a list. For example, If you want someone to post the company’s latest blog article, there are several steps to posting a new blog post. Those steps may include:
- Proof reading the article
- Adding links to the article
- Optimizing the post through Yoast
- Publishing the article on the blog
- Sending the article out to your list
- Posting the article on your social media sites
Being more specific can lead to success when you delegate, the trick is to keep your tasks to things you can do in one hour or less, and that you can check off a list.
Delete
Identify what things you don’t need to be doing and get rid of them! Take inventory of all the tasks you complete on any given day. Are there any that aren’t crucial to your business or getting you closer to your goals? If so, don’t feel bad about cutting them out entirely! Holding on to those tasks that you don’t need to be doing will just slow or stop your progress. Give yourself permission to drop them without feeling guilty about it.
Use A.D.D. to Your Advantage
When it feels like your business is in a state of chaos, A.D.D. can help. Automate, delegate, and delete tasks to save yourself time, and help stay focused on your goals. It will help you become more productive, and end the cycle of being constantly overwhelmed.