As entrepreneurs grow, they can often get caught in a cycle of overwhelm. The passion that ignited them to start their own business can get drowned out by too much work, too much time, and too much effort. Because often, it can be easy to think that if only there was more time or more energy would the problem be solved. The reality though is that once you get past a certain point, your business can only grow if you start to use systems because you really can only be in so many places at once.
The idea of systems can be very boring to entrepreneurs or even seem like just another pointless exercise intended to waste their precious time. But, building systems into your business will allow you to serve more people without losing your passion.
So today, I want you to take some time to think about one thing you do in your business that really seems to drag your day down. It could be social media scheduling, it could be consult scheduling, or your blogging, whatever it is, you’ll know it when you see it.
Then, I want you to figure out why. Why does that one thing seem to take way longer than it should? Why does that one thing seem to overwhelm you every time you do it?
I’ll be if you’re honest, it’s because you don’t really have a process down for it. So you end up doing it very haphazardly (or maybe not even at all!) which makes it even more challenging for you.
Now that you’ve identified the what and the why, I want you to spend some time outlining how you can improve it. For instance, if you struggle with scheduling your social media perhaps you need to set aside some time each month or week to batch schedule. You probably have some basic messages that you always want to be getting out there – so set aside an hour a week to schedule them. Or maybe it’s the interaction that you struggle with. So, set aside an hour a week to go through and respond to comments and continue conversations. If an hour seems to daunting, well start with 15 minutes two or three times a week. Get the idea?
Then, when you have the process of how you can improve it, be sure to write it down. Make it detailed enough that someone else could follow it – a step by step process intended to be easy to understand and complete.
Congratulations, you just created your first system! It may not be perfect on your first try and it may not stay the same long term. But as you use it, you’ll refine it and improve it which will only make it more effective.
