How to Systemize Everything

If you’ve ever looked at another entrepreneur and wondered how she manages to get it all done, the answer might surprise you. 

She’s 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 the same email from potential clients? What about responding to customer complaints? Or mailing your team to remind them to submit invoices?

All of these tasks 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” by creating a template document in a Dropbox or Google Drive to house all your templates for easier access. There are also free platforms like Streak and paid platforms like Dubsado that save your templates and can even automate the sending process. 

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. 

You can easily create 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. A few great systems we love are Trello and Asana. 

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

SOPs define the processes and systems you use in your business on a regular basis. They are an instructional, step-by-step manual to guide how the work in your business is accomplished.

 SOPs are valuable in helping you think through every part of your processes to ensure they are efficient. SOPs can be as simple as a Google doc or Loom video or a platform like Process Street can be used to create automated checklists. 

However, the greatest benefit of an SOP is that a well-written process means that the task can easily be handed off to someone else – ensuring that your assistant has everything they need to complete the task and you are able to regain valuable time to focus on the work that only you can do for your business…or even time to take a day off 🙂 

Templates, checklists and SOPs 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, you can hand them off to your assistant to do instead.