Would you like to be more productive in your business and finally get that long to-do list checked off? Or maybe you want shorter work days or less stressful (and more profitable) launches. If that’s you, listen up.

 

Today we’re talking all about productivity. But this won’t be what you’re expecting… or what you always hear about on this topic. 

 

While productivity doesn’t necessarily fall inside the realm of operations, planning for it does. Yes, plan for productivity… you heard that right. 

 

Productivity doesn’t just happen. It’s always purposeful, which is why a plan is needed. We’re going to talk about a few things you can do to create a productive culture for your business.

 

Creating a plan for what you’re going to do takes the emotion out of deciding what to do when you sit down to work. Plus, it allows you to get straight to work and to delegate with confidence.

 

“There are two things that are contagious in business: productivity and success.” This is what I want for you: productivity that leads to a leaner business, shorter workdays, and larger launches.

 

3 Productivity Hacks:
Create an Ideal Week for You

Your ideal week is a visual map of how you will use your time throughout a week. It should include both personal and professional obligations… oh and some white space too.

 

How are you going to create your ideal week?

1. Create a new calendar in Google Calendar.
   1. List those priorities out
   2. Give each priority a color
2. Know what your priorities are in this season of life.
3. Add in your top priorities on the calendar first.
4. Now add in your work time. Optional: theme your days based on what you want to focus on each day of the week.
5. Get granular and block off times for the key activities in your business. Caveat: don’t fall into the temptation to remove your personal activities from your calendar to make space for work.
6. Now look at the color distribution on your calendar. Are you leaving enough white space? Because things are going to come up and things will take longer than you expect
7. Print it out and/or update your scheduling software (i.e. Acuity/Calendly).
8. Share you calendar with your team!
9. Use the calendar and recalibrate as needed.

 

Create Your Business Hub

So what exactly is a Business Hub? Well, it’s a centralized place for all things business. It’s no secret that to run your business efficiently, a hub with important info or commonly requested items is a time saver. 

 

But deeper than that, it allows you to have one place where these items live so when a new team member joins, there's less strain on you to find or spend hours digging.

 

So what should be included on your Business Hub? There are some basics that I recommend such as your bio, important links, testimonials, branding information, your MVV, and legal docs like website policies or contract agreements.

 

To make this super easy for you, I’ve created a template for you that you can easily copy and use for yourself! Go to theopsauthority.com/businesshub to grab it for yourself. This is a Trello board, but if you prefer another tool, you can use the Trello template as an example and create your own in your favorite tool.

 

Create Your SOPs

SOPs stands for Standard Operating Procedures. This acronym gets tossed around a lot in the growing and scaling business world. And that’s for a reason. As a new business, your focus should be, or is likely, on revenue and visibility. 

 

But after you get your footing and shift to scaling, your operations will soon take over. That’s why documenting your processes is absolutely essential. It will help you scale your business by working smarter, not harder.

 

You might be wondering where to start with SOPs. These are processes, workflows, or systems that you use to get your work done. Most often they involve administrative activities and have several tasks linked together to reach the outcome. 

 

So how do you get started? Here’s a plan: 

1. Determine the 1-3 processes that you’d like to outsource when the time (and finances) allow. Some examples are email management, sending invoices, and content creation.
2. Record your process. You can write them out in a list format or a video using something like Loom. Don’t let perfectionism slow you down because these will be updated over time.
3. Put your processes in your Business Hub.

 

As a recap, you’ll want to carve out some time and complete these three things: create an ideal week calendar in Google Calendar, complete the Business Hub, and start your SOPs with 1-3 processes you want to outsource.

 

Weekly Ops Activity

Complete your Ideal Week and share a screenshot in the Ops Insiders!

 

Key Quotes from the Episode:

“There are two things that are contagious in business: productivity and success.”

“Make sure that YOU are represented on this calendar.”

 

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This episode was originally published on theopsauthority.com/podcast/8