The Lazy Guide to Workflows
If you find yourself not knowing where you left off with a certain project, which tasks you've already completed, or are constantly worried you're forgetting to do something...it's time to get your squirrels under control.
How? Workflows, boo. They'll get you all straightened out.
What's a workflow? In fancy talk a workflow is "the sequence of processes through which a piece of work goes from initiation to completion."
Basic talk? it's the method you set up for getting shit done.
And that stuff can be anything: from creating and promoting a blog post to a more in-depth project like writing a book or setting up an invoice system for clients.
Workflows are pure magic because they capture the systems and work that you perform in your business in a way that saves you time, energy, money and effort. Workflows help you avoid starting from zero with every task so that you can make the very most of your time and accomplish more! And, by the way, workflows are a great way to set yourself up for growth in your business because you’re essentially creating a handbook for future team members or contractors that may work with you.
Listen, I’m willing to bet you probably have real life workflows every day without even realizing it. For example: let’s say your grocery store is on the way to your kid’s soccer practice venue which also happens to be the route that passes your favorite ice cream shop. So every Monday, when your kid has soccer practice, you pick up your groceries on the way and then treat everyone to a sweet splurge on the way home. This route-to-experience optimization is essentially a workflow in its simplest form.
So many things in our businesses require multiple steps in order to complete. When you can sit down and say: these 10 things must happen in order to accomplish XZY, you're able to create repeatable workflow patterns that you can stick to.
Here's the thing: it's not easy to turn a set of decisions you make on the fly to a step-by-step workflow, especially because it requires time you may feel like you don't have. BUT! Spend a little time now looking at how you work and it'll save you hours of not having to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
Here's a quick & dirty guide to create workflows....
START by looking at the work you've done in the past 2-4 weeks and ask:
which tasks did you perform more than once?
where/when did you use similar graphics?
did you post similar language on social media?
did you respond/send emails with similar language or answering the same question?
These are all great places to build workflows for your business.
OR you can ask yourself this one key question:
“If I hired someone and they started working for me TODAY, how would I spell out the work that I do so they could perform that task seamlessly?”
NEXT, now that you've decided what tasks could use a workflow, you might assume it's best to sit down and write out workflows in one go. But it's actually the exact opposite. Say what?! Yes, it's typically better to record your process as you're working. Why? Because many tasks are so automatic you don't even think about them.
Trust me on this one: if you write out steps for a task BEFORE you've completed it, chances are you'll miss some key parts.
FINALLY, as you go through the process of writing out your workflows find a good place to store & manage them. I'm a fan girl of Trello but I hear good things about Asana and you could even do something as basic as a spreadsheet. There's no one right way to store/manage your workflows-- choose the medium you'll actually use, my queen bee.
And a quick tip: some tasks are one-offs. Do yourself a favor and make sure you don't waste time creating a detailed workflow for a process unless it's one you know will be repeated. Nothing worse than spending hours creating a workflow for those bespoke mermaid tails you were commissioned for when you're actually a dress maker. Ya know?
Whaddya think? Feeling good about getting those ducks in a row now?