Know Your Starting Point: The Key to Boosting Efficiency

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Table of Contents

Podcast Description

Do you ever feel like you’re just diving headfirst into creating systems without a clear plan? Trust me, you’re not alone!

However, there is a secret to getting truly efficient and it starts with knowing where you currently stand. Before building your systems, you’ll want to evaluate the 3 things we’re covering in today’s episode.

We’ll explore why taking a step back to evaluate is the smartest move you can make so that your efficiency soars.

Links Referenced in Episode:

▶ Grab your free ticket to the Savvy Sampler Pass

▶ Learn more about the Systems Savvy Society

▶ Check out the Efficiency Self-Assessment Toolkit

▶ Episode 58: Rest is Productive

▶ Episode 57: Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Systems for Your Business

▶ Episode 13: A Question Hack to Stop You From Overscheduling

▶ Episode 73: How To Save 7+ Hours Every Single Week

Connect with me:

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Watch on YouTube:

Episode Transcript

(Note: This is a formatted AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through, but is not an optimized blog post. Please excuse any spelling or grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

Episode Intro

Do you ever feel like you’re diving head first into creating systems without a clear plan? Yeah, trust me. You’re not alone. However, there is a secret to truly being efficient and it starts with knowing where you currently stand.

Before building your systems, you’ll want to evaluate the three things that we’re covering in today’s episode. We’ll explore why taking a step back to evaluate is actually the smartest move you can make so that your efficiency soars. So are you ready? Let’s dive in.

Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, your host of the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast, where I’m on a mission to help online entrepreneurs that like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelmed goodbye. Here, you’re going to learn strategies that will boost your productivity so that you can scale your online biz and impact lives sooner. It’s your time to shine. So let’s get started.

Hey, Hey, welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast. Oh my goodness. At the time of recording this today has been a day. There’s been this issue that’s been happening on my site that I really had to really evaluate, like, how big is this project going to be? How long is it going to take me?

Is there a way to resolve it more efficiently?

And I feel like it actually plays really nicely into the topic of today. Like in my notes, I actually have like, “Come back to this if you have a story that you can share.”

Well, we’re talking about being efficient and about how in order for you to do something in the most efficient way possible, you actually have to assess the current situation. And that’s exactly what I had to do today.

What It Means to Be Efficient

But first let’s take a step back and talk about what it even means to be efficient. Now, being efficient as an online business owner is not about cramming more into your day.

I actually just woke up from a nap myself because I was feeling so tired. I dropped off my daughter at school. I was working on this issue that, you know, took over my morning. I’ve honestly been staying up a little bit later than usual because of a massive project that I just started.

And so I was feeling really drained. And then knowing that I have to record, today’s a big recording name for me and recording always drains me even more. And I knew like, I’m not going to be able to give this my all. My brain is going to be so fried if I just try to push through. So I took a nap. I went, I took a nap and I feel good. I feel great.

It just took a short nap for me to feel refreshed, to feel rejuvenated. So, no, it’s not about adding more to your plate and trying to push through and get as much done and as little time as possible. That is not what we’re talking about here.

Okay. It’s about getting more of the right things done in a smarter way. And yeah, sometimes that means resting. I have a whole episode on how rest is productive. I’ll link to that in the show notes, because it truly, truly is.

And in this case today, That is what’s going to help me have the most productive day. That’s going to help me, help me be more efficient. It’s the fact that I stopped working to go take a nap is how I’m now going to be able to get more things done. More of the right things done more efficiently because now I’m going to be able to work faster.

I’m going to be able to work smarter because my brain is going to be actually working vs had, if I had just tried to push through, it would have been so cloudy. I would have thought about things longer and I probably wouldn’t have made the best judgment call. So this is what we’re talking about when I say it’s time to get efficient. Okay.

The Key to Boosting Your Efficiency

I want you to think about how you can really use systems and automations to help you get more efficient. So with this situation that I just shared, that’s helping me actually do some tasks to, to get more efficient, right.

To do some more tasks. Like me, I’m actually doing that task. However, you can also use your systems and automations to handle some repetitive tasks for you. You can delegate to a team member. That’s also being efficient.

Anything that really frees up your time to give you time, more time to focus on what truly matters, like creating something that is coming from your brain only you can create it, strategizing for your business, creating those strategic plans for your business that are really going to move you forward and help you achieve your goals to grow in your online business.

Like those are the things that we should really be focusing on as a CEO, as a founder of our business. And so when you build in these extra layers and use automations, you build these systems, it really helps you be more efficient.

Know Your Starting Point First

But before you can even dive into creating and building your systems, there’s been this huge, this huge thing that I’ve realized after working with so many clients and students and that it’s so hard to dive into creating systems when you don’t even know what you currently have.

The problem that I have seen often is people come in and they’re wanting to get systems created. and then just start building systems while everything else is still kind of a hot mess. And then they’re overwhelmed because now they have all of these systems that they don’t even know which ones work, which ones don’t, which ones do what, what these are for. Like, it’s a hot mess.

And so when you’re in a situation like this, where you have some systems, you have some processes in place and you just don’t know if they’re working for you or not. It’s not just a matter of, let me just get the next template. Let me just get the next thing. It’s a matter of like, okay, hold on.

Let me take a step back to assess what I currently have going on here. Before you even add more to that place. So. It is so, so important that you understand where you are currently at because having this level of clarity is what’s going to make it so much easier for you to reach your destination which is having systems that actually work for you, right.

We don’t want your systems to work against you. We want them to work for you. We get to this place where if you have a hot mess system, you add more hot mess systems to it, and then you might think, oh, my systems aren’t working. Or this, my brain just doesn’t work like that. Systems just don’t work for me. And that is so far from the truth.

It’s just because you haven’t taken the time to go back to reassess. What you currently have, because when you do that, you can then work on making improvements to it so that way it gets better before you even start building, creating, or adding new systems to your plate.

3 Steps to Evaluate Your Business Efficiency

So, how do you do this? How and what should you evaluate in your business to really see if you’re truly being the most efficient that you can be? Well, here are three steps. Here are three things that you can do to help you evaluate the efficiency in your business.

Conduct a Tools & Software Audit

The first thing that you’re going to want to do is to conduct a tools and software audit. So there might be a whole list of tools that you’re paying for that you may not even be using and you forgot you’re paying for. Or you might be paying for another similar lifetime tool for.

Like there’s so many tools that you might have, and you might have gotten at some point that you might have forgotten about. Even free plans. Like there might be so many tools, software, services, memberships, etc., that you have been paying for that you’re not even using.

And so when you can go back and assess and see what it is that you actually are paying for, it helps you identify potential cost saving opportunities to really boost your bottom line because in the end being efficient is also to help you bring in a higher percentage of profit.

Like you want to have a profitable business. And that is what being efficient helps you get towards. It helps you achieve that goal better because by getting more of the right things done faster is helping you focus on those money-making tasks. It’s helping you work on the things that are truly going to matter. And part of that is to help you get more profitable.

And so when you look at the tools and the softwares that you’re using, Then you can assess like, okay, do I need to cancel something? Oh my gosh, I totally forgot I had this tool. Let me actually start using it. Oh man. Like, I didn’t realize that I have this other tool that can also do this, I should go and cancel this other thing.

Like there’s so many things that you might be realizing this. I have so many students go through and complete this audit inside of the Efficiency Self-Assessment Toolkit and they were blown by like, wow. I went through and started canceling some of these subscriptions to tools that I didn’t even know I had.

They started realizing some price increases for other subscriptions that they were a part of that they hadn’t really caught on to yet. And now they’re like, oh, like now I know like, yes, it’s annoying to see, but you’ve been paying for it.

You’ve been paying for these tools that you might not even know are costing you more money, which means you have to make more money to afford them if you still want to keep the tool around. Right. So. The first thing that you want to do is really conduct a tools and software audit.

Evaluate Your Current Systems and Processes.

The second thing that you want to do is to evaluate your current processes and systems. Believe it or not, you likely have a, some sort of system happening going on in your digital workspace, in your online business for things that even maybe things that live in your head.

But it’s still kind of a system because you know where it’s at, you know where to find it, but no one else would. So it’s probably not a very sustainable system or a very sustainable process. It might not be the most efficient way to get something done either, but a system is still a system.

So that was what we were wanting to evaluate. Like, how are you currently doing tasks? How are you currently completing projects? Where are you currently storing things? You’re looking at all of these different things that are helping you in the day-to-day of your business and taking a step back to see like, what is going on here? What am I currently doing? Is it actually helping me or is it hurting me?

There are certain systems and processes that you might be doing, but are actually taking you way more time to complete had you really focused on making that system or process as efficient as possible.

And so whenever you assess the way that you’re currently doing things, and when you assess and evaluate the current systems and processes that you are already doing, this is how you can then decide which systems you can or should prioritize creating first, or even should you go back and just improve on the ones that you have first?

Should you go back and improve the current processes, improve the current systems that you have already before you create new ones? Or is it a situation where it’s like, yeah, it’s a system, but it’s not really a system or not a system that I want to improve.

I just want to have a whole fresh start. And create a new system for it and then stopped doing it this old way. That’s totally fine too. But you won’t know, unless you assess until you evaluate what it is that you’re currently doing.

The other thing that I want to point out here is that once you do this assessment, you don’t need to create all of your systems at once. This is a big, big mistake that I see often. There’s a whole episode on the biggest mistakes, system mistakes I see entrepreneurs make and this is one of them.

It’s like, you feel like you have to create everything at once. And I get the need. I understand, but you don’t have to. That’s actually going to hinder your efficiency because you’re going to start creating all these systems and not actually doing what the systems are supposed to help you do.

And also you’re going to get overwhelmed because if you’re not like a systems geek, like I am, you’re probably not having fun creating all these Trello boards. Like I get excited to create my Trello boards like that is when I’m the most happiest person.

But I know that it’s just to help me get the actual tasks that I need to get done done. Right. But you might not function like that. You might not get as excited. And so it might be overwhelming for you to then have all of these systems and you’re like, okay. I don’t even know what I have. I don’t even know what, where I stored this. I don’t even know.

Like you have to start with one, like, just start with one. Just start with one, start using that one and started seeing the results that you get with that one system. And that is going to make it so much easier for you to then want to continue creating them and to see the results and experience the time that you’re saving them.

The overwhelm that is leaving when you implement and start using these systems effectively. But you won’t know until you assess what you’re currently doing. Okay. So definitely check out episode 57 if you want to learn more about all the different mistakes and then I see entrepreneurs make when they dive into creating systems so that way you don’t make those same mistakes.

Track How Long Tasks Take to Complete

And then lastly, I’m not going to talk about this in too long, because I’ve already mentioned this so many times in the past few episodes, because it’s that important.

And it’s to track how long it takes you to complete certain tasks. I know this is one of those things that sounds so tedious. It sounds like, do I really have to stop and track everything that I’m doing? Like yes and no.

There’s certain tools that make it so easy for you to track how long it takes you to do something. And it’s not like you have to do this forever, but I do recommend that you do it.

If you are in a space where you feel like, I don’t know where time went, like, I don’t know, like. I was supposed to get this done. And I swear, I thought I was going to be able to get it done. And then you’re not able to. That’s a good sign that you might be over-scheduling yourself.

And two that like it’s time to figure out how long it’s actually taking you to complete certain tasks, because that is going to make it easier for you to then schedule the right amount of time for you to complete the task.

Because if you’re constantly over-scheduling and I talk about over-scheduling in another episode that I’ll link to in the show notes. But when you’re constantly over-scheduling, you’re adding more pressure to yourself. You’re adding more of those negative emotions that we don’t want to feel like stress and overwhelmed because we’re just like, ah, I need to get this on. I should get it done.

Right. And then you’re beating yourself up for not getting the task done when in reality, it’s just because you didn’t allocate enough time for it. And so we get to a place where we’re adding so much to our plate. We’re adding so much to our weekly planner and we’re not getting the things done.

Then the task just keeps getting shifted and shifted and shifted. And we’re so ambitious that we think we want to do it all. We think we can. But in reality, you just don’t have the amount of time to work on it like you think you do because of how long it’s taking you.

And the other thing that I’ll say here is that sometimes when you start to track how long it takes you to complete certain tasks, you might then be able to spot the efficiencies of like, oh, why is this taking me so long like no!, I am not going to take 30 minutes to do keyword research. Like, no, no, no, no. I’m going to cut that down to five minutes.

Like whatever I can find in five minutes, that’s enough. that’s happened to me. There’s tools like in Trello, there’s a specific power up that you can use in Trello to just easily start tracking how long certain tasks take you whenever I create a new project and I have no idea how long this is going to take me.

Like, if it’s like recently I was working on a new Pinterest board for myself where I’m like, I haven’t been on Pinterest in so long. I know I’m going to be scrappy. I know that it’s going to take me way longer than I hoped.

But I’m going to track it to see how long my average is so I can know if this is going to be doable, if it’s going to be doable for me to do and keep up with every single week.

And in the beginning it was like, okay, this has taken me a lot longer than I would hope it is. And then I was like, okay, if I can shave down this amount of time, if I can design, you know, pins in less than two minutes each. I mean, that was like, when I first started doing it again, it’s like, I think I can handle this. I think I can handle this right. Then I wouldn’t know if I wasn’t tracking the time.

So definitely if you’re finding yourself not completing certain tasks that you’re assigning to yourself each week, then you’re probably over-scheduling yourself and you should probably do some time tracking because you won’t know how long to allocate for these certain tasks and projects until you figure that out. In doing so it helps you to better balance your workload. Okay. So I mentioned this in episode 73, so I will, so I will also link to that in the show notes.

Free Savvy Sampler Pass Event

But let me tell you, these steps are just the beginning. Like these are just the beginning for you to even start with getting your systems that created.

I actually dive so much deeper into each one of these three inside of the self-assessment toolkits. The Efficiency Self-Assessment Toolkit, which has also inside the Systems Savvy Society.

All my members get that toolkit for free, but you can also grab the toolkit separately if you want to take a look at it. I will link to it in the show notes.

But also, if you are listening to this in real time, then you will get a taste. You can actually get a taste of what it’s like to evaluate your systems effectively through my upcoming free event, which is the Savvy Sampler Pass. You can grab your pass at cheersorproductivity.com/pass.

It’s a free two day event to learn how to get the most important things done with clarity and focus even if you struggle to stay organized. It is such an amazing event.

This is my second time putting it together. So many, so much great feedback from the last ones. If you really want to kind of see what this is all about, One of those would even look like for you, like how it would look like to go through and assess systems.

I am pulling out one of the lessons from the toolkit and giving it to you for free for two days during this free event, but only if you grab your free pass. Okay. So definitely be sure to check that out. Or like I said, the toolkit is always available inside of the Systems Savvy Society as well.

All right. So you’ll get to experience all of this inside of that Savvy Sampler Pass. I hope that you enjoyed this episode.

Episode Wrap-Up

Just to do a quick recap, the three things that you should do to evaluate your efficiency are: conduct a tools and software audit, evaluate your current systems and processes and track how long it takes you to complete certain tasks. All right. Don’t forget to grab your free pass and I will see you, talk to you in the next episode.

Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast with me, Lucy Reyes. To get the full transcript and all the links mentioned in today’s episode, go visit the show notes where everything is linked there. And before you go, make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening so you know once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success!