Usually, around this time of year, (even if you’re not in the southern hemisphere) is when people can start to feel a little bit meh about their business.
You start finding yourself procrastinating more.
You start looking at that to-do list and thinking, “Do I really want to do all this, this year? Is that even going to be possible? Can I even be bothered?”
It’s when the motivation just starts to sag, and it happens around about this time of year for everyone, whether you are coming into autumn or coming into spring.
It’s the perfect time of year to do a bit of a Spring clean (of your online business).
And that Spring clean really helps you get super clear on what you’re doing, get rid of a bunch of clutter, and also give your brain a bit of a mental detox so that you’re feeling revived and refreshed and ready to take on the rest of the year (and really make some cool stuff happen before we wrap up 2017).
Organise Your Business: What is a business spring clean?
It’s not as scary or tedious as an actual home spring clean. There is no Windex or wipe downs involved, unless you really want there to be.
This is really about going through and just decluttering some of that stuff that’s probably built up and learning how to organise your business in a way which will help you focus more + procrastinate less.
Making a bit more mental space so that you can tackle those projects, getting reinvigorated, getting remotivated and making the best of the remaining months that we have left in the year.
#1 – Organise Your Business: Physical Decluttering
So I’ve just done this on my desk, it was an absolute bomb site only a couple of days ago. And to actually go look at your workspace and think, “Is this is a place of calm?
Is this a place that is going to make me feel inspired, that is going to make me want to sit down and get some stuff done?
Or is this a place of chaos?”.
Clean off your desk.
Give everything a wipe down. Maybe if you’ve got a dead plant in the corner it might be time to get rid of it or find a live one.
It’s all about creating that wonderful space where when you sit down and not be looking around and thinking, “Oh god, I should do that.”
If you’re one of those people that just needs stuff to be in order, which I am, sitting amongst chaos just makes me want to leave. So I will get up and I’ll go make a cup of tea or go take the dog for a walk.
It means I’m just very unproductive
Wherever you do your work, you want to be able to sit down and feel motivated and not feel like you should be doing something else. So declutter that space.
#2 – Organise Your Business: Filing
Go and file that stuff that you’ve been putting off filing.
Have a personal admin day if you need too.
So if you’ve been putting off doing your taxes or going to the dentist or chasing up on bills, go do it!
All those little bits and pieces add up so, go and get all that stuff ticked off, and then it’s not going to be weighing on your brain anymore.
Organise your business so that you can keep on top of things.Click To Tweet#3- Organise Your Business: Desktop Declutter
Just go through, do a big haul.
Delete your trash bin.
So many people carry on this trash because they just worry they’ve accidentally deleted something that they shouldn’t, and that’s actually even slowing down your computer. So delete the trash.
Clean everything out.
If you notice that you’ve got a lot of recurring stuff on your desktop, like you’re someone like me who takes a lot of screenshots of things or maybe sees something that’s inspirational like, “Oh, this is a cool idea, I want to try that or look into this more,” and you screenshot stuff.
Create a folder that all of your screenshots go into.
Just adding a few of those simple processes will totally change your life and will just mean that you’re not having to do such a massive declutter next time around.
So that’s your physical space covered. Get all that stuff done.
Again, when you organise your business like this, everything will have it’s own place and be easier to find.
#4 – Organise Your Business: Processes
You don’t have to do everything because that’s a massive task, but just think about the top 2-3 things that you do a lot, things that you do regularly.
Whether it’s Friday blog posts, or scheduling social media, or following up with clients, or maybe it’s onboarding new people.
Think about things that you do often and you do again and again, simple things that have multiple steps.
I want you to try and systemise those.
I’m not saying you need to go and create crazy automations or anything.
But I want you to create a checklist.
Use a tool like Asana or Trello and create a template for each of the steps that you have to go through.
And inside that template, save everything that you need.
So if you’re one of those people who is like, “Okay, so I’ve got to do this thing, now I’ve got to find that password. Where was that again? Oh, and I need to file that, and I’m going to write out the email from scratch.”
All of those things could have been systemised and can be templated down.
I want you to pick 2-3 things, depending on how much time you’ve got, and try and systemise them.
Try and add as many shortcuts, time savers in there as you can.
It will give you back half an hour to an hour of your week, if not more.
That’s such a gift when you’re running your own business because time is money.
And the more time you have to spend on your business, the more money you’re likely to make.
Or hell, maybe you can spend it bingeing on Netflix and just enjoying yourself and relaxing instead.
Neither of those things are a bad thing.
So think, “How can I simplify these? How can I streamline these?”
And create that sort of step-by-step template checklist inside Asana or Trello.
It should include all of the assets, all of the tools, all the reference points, all the scripts you need.
If it’s emails that you’re sending, have those emails pre-written that you can just copy, paste, update and send.
Make your life easier, save yourself a bunch of time by organising your business processes.
If you’re doing this regularly, every six to 12 months, you’ll find you’re slowly processing more and more things, you’re saving more and more time and you’re going to be so much more productive.
#5 – Organise Your Business: Commitments
Everyone has them.
These are things that maybe you agreed to do a year ago, or something you feel like you should do, or something that you think all of your friends are doing so you should be doing it, or you see there’s other people doing it.
Maybe you’ve agreed to help someone out with something.
Maybe you have a client who’s barely paying you enough money to make it worth your while.
Maybe it’s just that you’ve committed yourself to too many projects this year, and you know you’re not going to get them done, and it’s stressing you out.
And that stress is causing you to procrastinate and therefore get you less time.
Think about what it is that you’ve committed to that maybe isn’t serving you as well as it needs to.
I give you total permission to be selfish here, and it’s actually not being selfish because time is your most valuable asset as well as your energy.
Time and energy, both super valuable, things you can’t buy, things you can’t get more of, things that everyone has a very limited supply of.
If you are cheating yourself on either of those things by spending your time or your energy on stuff that isn’t serving you, that is actually something that you’re maybe resenting a bit.
Something that you know that you probably should’ve said no to, but you’ve committed to it now, so you’ve got to see it through.
I give you permission to gracefully bow out because getting back that bit of time, removing that bitter resentment is going to make the world of difference.
It’s going to have you feeling way more focused, way more on top of things, way more excited about your week and what you’ve got coming up and it’s going to free up some time.
So there are your 5 ways to organise your business by giving it a spring clean.
If you are currently feeling a little bit meh about your business, if you find yourself procrastinating, if you find yourself getting up and making 100 cups of tea a day and not actually getting through your to-do list, it sounds like you definitely need to do a business spring clean.
So many of us, particularly females and particularly in this kind of space, we feel the need to give, give, give, give, give.
We end up emptying our cup, and that is our energy cup here, not our physical cup.
And then you don’t have any energy to continue to give.
It’s not serving your family, it’s not serving your friends, it’s not serving your business, and it’s definitely not serving yourself to have massively over committed yourself to things that you don’t really want to do and you’re only doing it because you kind of feel obligated.
It’s okay to say no to that stuff. People forget about it eventually, they’re going to get over it.
Just do it with grace.
Use the time that you get back wisely.
You’re going to have brain space, you’re going to have an extra couple of hours in your week, if not more.
And if you invest them wisely, then you’re going to feel amazing, that’s going to reflect in your business and it’s a total win-win for everybody.
Organise Your Business: Extra Help
So if you are feeling a bit meh, or maybe you found that the results that you’re getting lately haven’t been what you want, and you’re not really sure how to pinpoint exactly what that is.
I did a blog post a little while ago about how to create a scorecard for your business which will help to get your business back on track.
It’s about how to create an online scorecard for your business that you can then use to score yourself each week and to find those holes where things are maybe slipping through the cracks.
Maybe where you need to improve and things you can use to increase your results super easily, super fast.
It’s a 20 minute exercise, and it will really help you to pinpoint those areas that you need help with.
