When I think “summer,” I think of three things: Eliminate, Automate and Delegate. Let me explain why…

One of the best things I’ve ever done was to create summer hours for my business. And, one of the great pleasures of having a few hours to myself every week is spending time reading books that inspire and motivate me to be a better business owner. Recently, the author that I’ve been enjoying most is Denise Duffield-Thomas, a money mentor for entrepreneurs. 

 

Reading is one of the habits you could be enjoying now that you’ve created your own summer hours!

 

…wait. You have created a more flexible schedule for yourself, right? 

 

If the notion of working less to enjoy the season more sounds as scary as spending the day at the beach with no sunblock, then I have 3 steps for you to take your time back!

 

First, let’s take a note from Denise Duffield-Thomas and look at your plate. 

“What are things you can eliminate, automate and delegate?”

 

Eliminate

  • Do you have projects that have multiple check-in processes? 
    • Do you need to check on every subtask or could you eliminate the constant checking in and create one or two checkpoints that are more pivotal to your role and considerate of your time?
  • Non-evergreen content creation
    • I used to spend hours every month making custom content for every seminar or workshop that I was invited to speak at; but now with a little pre-planning in my regular content, I can easily pull together a presentation with previous pieces!

 

Automate

  • Do you still use a traditional calendar that needs to be checked and updated each time you schedule a meeting?
    • Try a calendar app like Acuity to automate the process for your clients and prospective clients! Acuity allows the person requesting an appointment to see when I’m free as they schedule, totally automating the process. 
  • Do you have services that could be completed by the client instead of your team?
    • For example, many of my clients use DiSC training to enhance communication and efficiency within their organization. The process of adding new employees to the system was time consuming for both the client and our team. Now we have an automated system where it only takes two clicks to onboard a new employee into our DiSC training. 
    •  This has saved me countless hours a month!

 

Delegate

  • Are you responsible for only one piece of a task?
    • For example, I was checking data for a task in which I have no other role and I realized that the rest of the subtasks all belonged to one person! It made no sense for me to continue doing one tiny part of the big task when my teammate was already taking care of the rest of it! Delegating the entire task not only made more sense and saved me about 15 minutes a week!
  • “They don’t take that long” tasks
    • Do you find yourself taking care of a bunch of “small” tasks that could be easily passed down to someone else? They may not seem like much when you look at them individually, but when you delegate a single 15-minute task a week, you could save 780 minutes a year…that’s 13 hours!

 

I recently looked at the areas of my business that I could “eliminate” “automate” and “delegate” and was able to recoup about 4 hours a week. I’m confident you can find similar results. 


Summer hours are NOT out of reach! It’s never too late to take your time back. However, if you feel like you’re still struggling to remain efficient, we’re here to help – check out our Time Thief Eliminator and let us help you to live your best life this summer!!!