36 | Wondering about Workflows: Transforming Busyness into Productivity

Can an honest look at your daily tasks transform your business? Today on the Annoyingly Optimistic Show, we promise to uncover the hidden secrets of your workflows. We delve into the life of Tim, a small business owner facing the common challenge of feeling busy but unproductive. By taking a close, almost forensic look at his daily routines, we'll reveal how documenting and analyzing each step can lead to surprising efficiencies.

In our latest episode, I leave a voicemail for Tim packed with actionable advice on how to optimize workflows. Learn how simple acts like recording task durations honestly can provide eye-opening insights into where your time really goes. Whether it's answering customer calls, managing emails, or finalizing quotes, we’ll show you how to identify and name each task to start making meaningful improvements. Grab your notebook and get ready to supercharge your productivity—one workflow at a time!

If you are self-employed or run a small business and feel more like you're self-annoyed then get in touch, visit the website www.theannoyinglyoptimisticshow.com where you can submit a question or problem and start your journey to becoming self-enjoyed! 

The majority of 'business advice' out there isn't aimed at self-employed or micro businesses, following it leaves you frustrated and chasing quick fixes. I specialise in tools, systems, techniques, inspiration and help specifically designed for YOU, the person who has to do it all, who doesn't have a team of people, unlimited resources or the time to spend months learning complicated techniques. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey there, listeners, it's your annoyingly optimistic host here bringing you another season of the Annoyingly Optimistic Show. Welcome to Season 2, voicemails to Tim. Now let's meet Tim. He's been running his own small business for almost three years now and let's just say he's hit a bit of a rough patch. You know how it is Sometimes you get so stuck, you make yourself busy and just avoid finding the real problems. Well, that's Tim. So, as a good friend, I decide to leave him a daily voicemail, if I can't get hold of him, filled with nuggets of inspiration, insight and wisdom and downright brilliant ideas to help get him unstuck Every day. In just under 10 minutes, I'll share some tips, tricks and a healthy dose of optimism to get Tim, and maybe even you, back on track, because, let's face it, we're all a little tired, in need of help and muddling through. So here we go. Oh wait, never mind Tim's being busy. Here's the voicemail I left him today. Hi, tim, sorry I missed you. Have you well? Have a good weekend.

Speaker 1 1:01

Workflows, just something. I was working on something in my own business and I had this vague inkling that we touched upon it, and I think I'd written in some of my notes when we spoke that we had to come back to it because I got the sense that workflows for you was something that other people have complicated things have, and things like that and in reality, workflows are the lifeblood of a successful business because they really cover everything. Now you can have computer workflows, you can have, you know, people workflows. They cover everything in the business. What it's about is about documenting the steps that that you take and then look back in those steps and see whether you can tweak them, change them, get efficiencies in there and, as with anything, by looking at something, by paying attention to something, by tracking it and analyzing it to the degree of if you had to explain it to someone else, which is always the the benchmark I use because to understand something really really well, you, you, you can, are then able to explain it to someone else. If you don't understand something well enough, you kind of struggle and you won't really be able to do it. So by focusing on something, paying attention to it, being intentional, you can document the various stages you do and just by doing that you will find improvements. So it was one of those things that I wanted to kind of you know, fire in your direction, tim, because you know this idea of being tired, um, you know, of rushing around all the time and not feeling like you're getting there.

Speaker 1 2:52

Workflows are one of these things that in their own they're not going to save the world, but they're enough to kind of start stacking up the little things that are working for you rather than against you, and that's you know in my book that that's good enough. So what is case of doing and and start this week? Grab a notebook, something on you know, a notepad on your, on your computer or whatever it might be, something on your phone, just something when you can record it and what you want to be doing, whether it's taking a customer call, replying to a customer email, putting a quote together, an invoice, a job, finishing off a job when some things have come back in from a supplier, anything, what it is. Give it a name, which is which is kind of very important. And even right now, if you can think off a load of names, give them a name so that they're ready for when you need to kind of start them. Put each one on a different note, different piece of paper, whatever it might be, just something that now, what you're not looking to do here is you're not looking to change anything, reinvent something.

Speaker 1 3:58

First step is always recording, and be as honest as you can with recording it. Now what you want to do is write that job down and if you can think up 20 different tasks that are a group of jobs in your business, write down the name and write down off the top of your head, without you know spending too much time, how long you think that task actually takes you, because one of the things that just recording this does is it uncovers how long things actually take you. We're great at being busy and we're not great at realizing how much time we spend doing something, so write down that kind of time. Then what I wanted you to do over the course of this week, as those different activities come up, just write down the steps. Um, you know. So what's the? You know? Replying to a customer email. Do you just dive in randomly ad hoc and send them an email putting a quote together, putting a if a job's ready for a customer to pick it up, or something like that?

Speaker 1 4:52

What's the process? Write these processes down. If all you get done is to write the processes down, that's a good start, but ideally what you want to do is write the processes down and in a little bracket next to them, long they actually take you. So the process, the time, and then what? If there's a specific tool, whether, again, if it's on the computer, whether it's a specific piece of software, particular piece of hardware, something particularly, you need to carry that task out. So basically, if you haven't got that thing on hand, that piece of software, that computer, that machine or whatever, you wouldn't got that thing on hand, that piece of software, that computer, that machine or whatever, you wouldn't be able to complete that task, because that will become a key component later.

Speaker 1 5:36

So what you want to do is record those tasks, record what you do, how you do them, how long they take and what you need to do them. So you're going to end up with these kind of list of tasks. Now the first thing that this will start to show you is whether that kind of guesstimate, the beginning of how long it takes you, whether that was accurate or not. Now, if it's accurate, brilliant. You're one of the few that can. That's, you know, with your time. But often what happens is the amount of time it actually takes you when you've actually recorded. That is a lot longer than the amount of time that you thought it did, and, and that's great, that's not a bad thing. That's actually the result we want, because what tends to happen is that only when we look at these things in detail can we see where the efficiencies are, where we can improve these workflows and where we've been kidding ourselves. So finding that is actually a good thing, because then what you can do is where you've written down those times.

Speaker 1 6:33

Why does that task take me five minutes? Anything that seems to take a large amount of time. Or if, let's say, you thought a task took you 15 minutes and that actually, having recorded it, is taking you 25, 30 minutes, have a look at what's eating away at that time. Is it the fact that, yeah, in your head there was only five little elements as part of that, but actually there's 25, and so there was just an under estimate of the of the parts of the workflow that were needed? Or was it just kind of god, I thought that only took me five minutes? It actually takes me 15.

Speaker 1 7:08

So look at those things and start to look at efficiencies. Write up the process that you've scribbled down or put in a note as as a document in that process and then look at where you can. You know, can I have a get a different piece of software? Can I put some automation in there? Can I use some ai in there? Can I outsource this? Whatever it might be. But look through those individual tasks now.

Speaker 1 7:31

To a degree, any saving is good. But if, if, uh, you know, a workflow takes you 25 minutes, shaving off 10 seconds isn't going to make a massive difference. You want to be, you know, making 30 second savings on each individual element within a workflow, in an ideal world, unless there are lots and lots of parts of it, in which case there's 10 seconds stack up, but by tracking them honestly, recording them, putting the time it starts, to give you the ability to go okay, this is the way that I can do this and it will often show you ways that you can do it more efficiently. Actually, there must be something that I can do those four things all in one go, with one button press. That would make things a lot easier.

Speaker 1 8:13

Now, often you can hit a roadblock with this because you're using the tools, the skills, the knowledge that you have and you can see that, god, this is taking me a long amount of time, but you actually don't know how to fix it. And that's then opens up a whole another you know kind of level of issue. And this is why people often avoid workflow because they just thought well, I just do what I do and you don't know what you don't know, you don't know what tools are out there. But by focusing on this and being realistic you can often shave 10, 15, 25% easily. You then might be another 5, 10% of efficiencies that you can kind of get in there. And then you get to this point where, actually, if there was something that could do this better, but I don't know about. But that's then when a certain bit of research can start.

Speaker 1 9:04

Now, again, not diving down too many rabbit holes, but look at that particular task, see if there's a piece of software, but what you want in your head is that, okay, what would make that quicker? Because if you can imagine a way of making it click quicker by combining it, you know, or some way reordering it, the chances are there's a piece of software out there. If it's a software problem, um, or a piece of hardware, if it's a machine or whatever, that can do that, and that's then worth looking into. But again, it's worth looking into, based on the scale of what you think it can save you. If you think that I could turn that 10 minute job into a one minute job, brilliant, then then invest the time into that, because the compounding effect of that workflow working for you will be huge. If it's going to save you 10 seconds, 15 seconds, then it's lower down on the list and only when you get into the real minutiae might that help.

Speaker 1 10:00

So workflows bit dry, not the most exciting thing, but those efficiencies, those little ways of working, those little hacks and tricks and tips that you know because you do these things over and over again. But by recording them, being intentional and and seeing what they're all about and then looking to find those solutions, you not only create a more efficient business and where you're spending more time doing the things that you, that you want to do, but actually you also start to create bits of the business that, if that is a task that's very repetitive and you do something over and over again and you want to pass that on to a member of staff, if you want to get a member of staff, if you want to outsource that, whatever, that's the basis to which you can find another solution to achieve that problem, because you've documented the problem, you've documented the steps, you've documented what happens and that's the first step to being able to find a better solution to to handle that. So it's worth doing a little bit of homework for you this week, tim. So see how you get on with that. Um, and yeah, ping me any across that you think there might be some efficiencies in. And when you hit that wall of going, I have no idea how to fix this. I might not have any idea of how to fix that either, but ping it across to me and we'll see what we got. So hopefully that helps, tim, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye for now, and that's it for today.

Speaker 1 11:23

Episode of voicemails to tim on the annoyingly optimistic show. Now, remember, tim might be, but we're all in this together. Whether you're tired, in need of help or just muddling through, tim is here for you. Because, well, tim is you. Yes, you heard that right. Tim isn't just my friend. He's a reflection of all of us who are struggling to make it work. T-i-m stands for tired, in need of help and muddling through. So if you're feeling like a Tim, you're not alone For all those ambitious listeners. If you've got a burning business question, a quirky thought or just want to see if you can leave an even weirder voicemail, head over to the website voicemailstotimcom, submit your question and maybe, just maybe, you'll hear your idea in a future voicemail to Tim. So until then, stay annoyingly optimistic, keep pushing forward and remember if life gives you lemons, leave a voicemail about it.