As your online business grows, things don’t get easier.
They get harder and more complex.
There are more moving parts, data to track, software to set up, people to manage, copy to write, etc.
And if you’re not careful, it’s easy to let overwhelm take over and have that keep you from making progress for months at a time (or even years).
One of the things you can do to simplify things is to create a system for every activity in your business.
A system is just a set of consistent procedures on how something gets done, whether it’s you, someone else, or a machine that does it.
For example, when I first got started with driving traffic via Facebook one of the most frustrating and overwhelming things for me was something as simple as “naming” the campaigns, ad sets, and ads.
On the surface, it appears to be a quick and simple process. Just pick a name and get on with it, right?
Still, always having to come up with and decide on a new name that wasn’t the same as several of the other campaigns I had already set up was draining to me.
So that was one of the first things I “systematized”.
I came up with a system for naming my campaigns where I no longer have to decide what the name is. The system does that for me.
Now, that is one less thing I have to spend energy on.
In the same way there are likely some activities in your business that drain you too.
Think of one of those activities and ask yourself…
1 – Why is this activity significant or important to the business? Does it have to exist or can it be eliminated?
If the activity can be eliminated then don’t spend your energy on it for now…
If it cannot be eliminated…
2 – Do I have to do it? Can someone else do it? Or can a machine do it?
If you don’t have to do it yourself, have someone else or a software do the task.
Although, sometimes it’s useful to do something yourself and find ways to make it more efficient before you have someone else do it (especially if this person is just following your instructions).
Another shortcut is to just hire an expert who already has a system for it and you can skip the “creating instructions” part, etc.
If you have to do it yourself…
3 – Break down that activity into multiple components. So for example, if it’s writing an email newsletter for the week, your components might be…
Pick topic for email
Write subject line
Write intro
Write body
Write conclusion
Write P.S. or promo section
Or it might be…
Pick topic for email
Write subject line
Write story
Write insight/lesson
Write P.S. or promo section
4 – Analyze the first component and look for what can be done the “same” every time. What is the most significant or important part about this component? Is there a part of this component I can eliminate? Is there a way to streamline this so I can do it in half the time? How can I eliminate the decision fatigue from this component?
One of the ways to eliminate decision fatigue and to make the creation or implementation of each component more efficient is to find where you can make things the same every time.
Consistency will do wonders for your overwhelm and in many cases can keep you from burning out.
Say you struggle to pick a topic for each week’s newsletter.
Do some work ahead of time, create a topic bank, organize it by category. Category 1, Category 2, Category 3, Category 4, etc.
Take some time to fill up each category with ideas.
Then assign category 1 to week 1 of 4 in the month, category 2 to week 2, category 3 to week 3, etc.
Now, instead of spending 30-60 minutes coming up with and deciding on a topic you can spend 30 seconds pulling up your Topic Bank spreadsheet and seeing what the next topic in the list is. Boom, 1 hour saved right there!
5 – Repeat this analysis for each component of the activity that drains you. How can you cut the TIME it takes you to do it? Is there a way to reduce the amount of ENERGY you spend on it? What about that component can be the SAME each time?
For example, for writing subject lines…
My process is to write the body of the email first and then I’ll choose something from the body of the email to be the subject line. I may adjust it a bit once I’ve got the idea for the subject line, but instead of laboring over that decision for 20 minutes, that’s now a 1-2 minute process.
Find the activity that drains you the most and create a consistent system for it. The more systems you have the less total “energy” you’ll need to spend on it which means you can now spend that energy elsewhere!
See you next time…
-Eddys Velasquez
DigitalMarketingRx
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