Q: One
of the reasons I decided to become self-employed was the rigamarole
demanded of me while working for someone else-forms to fill out,
justifications, other people's schedules to keep, and on and
on. But I know that to run my business successfully, there are
things that regularly need to be done. What are they, and how do I
"make" myself do them without feeling the resentment I
did while employed?
A:
Larger businesses can hire people to whom to delegate routines, but
anyone operating a one- or two-person business from home has tasks
that, if not done regularly, produce unforgiving consequences.
While each business has its own demands, some common tasks
include:
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Making (and keeping) marketing contacts
Billing and following up on unpaid invoices
Paying bills
Reconciling your bank statements
Filing receipts
Making tax payments and filing required forms and reports
Processing snail mail
Answering e-mail and phone calls
Processing orders
Sending thank-you notes
Reading newspapers and other periodicals
Filing and cleaning up work in progress
Ordering supplies
Running business errands
Of course, communications technology enables small businesses to
increasingly use off-site office support personnel, such as virtual
assistants, to delegate many of these tasks. But if you're not
financially able to or willing to delegate, you must find ways to
get yourself to do things that pile up when left undone, resulting
in growing irritation as well as additional time, energy and cost
on your part.
Essentially, a routine involves establishing a regular time,
space and manner for getting things done. Although setting up
regular routines and rituals may seem confining, they actually make
handling of administrative minutiae into habits, meaning things get
done without you having to think much about them.
Here are several rules of thumb for creating effective routines
and rituals:
Identify those things that must be done over and over in some
timely fashion, and then ask yourself how you can get them to
happen automatically. Do you need to remind yourself to do them,
putting them onto your electronic calendar as repeating tasks? Or
maybe they can be tucked seamlessly into what you already do each
day, week or month through what we now call multitasking, like
answering e-mail while you're "on hold" making phone
calls.
Assign repetitive tasks to a convenient time, place and procedure.
We, for example, have always had a file cabinet in a closet near
the front door, so when supplies and materials arrive in the mail
or we return home from purchasing them, we can simply take all
receipts out of the packages and put them right into the proper
file. Because there's no home delivery where we are, we go to
the post office just before it closes around 4 p.m. each day. Then
we open and process the mail when we get home.
Give your routines trial runs. Once you've identified when,
where and at what intervals you wish to carry out various tasks,
commit to following your routines diligently for at least six
weeks. If, during that time, you find yourself avoiding or
resenting them, it's a sign you need to make adjustments.
Either the routines you've established aren't functional,
or you need additional help to manage them because they're
taking up too much of your day. Effective routines simplify, not
complicate, your life.
Blend the things you like with the tasks that are most difficult or
unpleasant to you. For example, if you hate filing and enjoy a
particular kind of music, play it while you take on the filing, and
turn this into a ritual.
The best routines and rituals enable you to dispense with them
in the quickest and least intrusive way, freeing you to focus on
what's really important. Think of them as the power flow in
your home office, always in the background, but forever enabling
things to work while you go about your business.
Small-business experts Paul and Sarah Edwards' latest
book is Changing Directions Without Losing Your Way
(Putnam Publishing Group). Send them your start-up business
questions at www.workingfromhome.com or in
care of Entrepreneur.