Are you overwhelmed with where to start streamlining your business on your Mac?
Well, in today’s show, I will help you find the perfect starting point
Main topic
So solopreneurs like us we usually wear multiple hats and we have to do so many different things in our business that it can be difficult sometimes to decide where to begin our streamlining efforts and what to optimize first. And so the idea here is that we should basically start and prioritize the tasks that are based on the frequency that we do them.
So for instance, we should start with the things that we repeat multiple times daily. Then we should do the things that we repeat on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, on a quarterly basis, and then the things that we do maybe once or twice per year. And so the idea here is really to tackle the most repeated tasks first.
Now let’s go a little bit deeper into this with some specific examples.
Email example
And so, for instance when dealing with email, right, managing email, this is something that you most probably do several times every day. To help you quickly sort out emails automatically, you could then implement filters.
So it’s a way to automate this aspect. You can do that in the mail app, the Native Mail app on your Mac, but you can also do that with Gmail, with Outlook and other web services like that. Now on top of Gmail filters. I’m using a tool called Sanebox which also keeps my inbox as lean as possible.
So I have two special folders, two special flags. SaneLater and SaneNews and through artificial intelligence SaneBox is automatically putting away some of the emails that I received so that those emails do not end up in my in inbox. And so the inbox is a little bit more manageable.
It’s not perfect, but it’s already a, I’d say a, a good thing. If you use Microsoft Outlook, on your Mac, you have also something very similar, which called the Priority Inbox. So it’s possible also again through first artificial intelligence, but also you can train Microsoft Outlook to triage for you automatically emails and put the less important emails in that secondary inbox and keep the most important one in the Priority inbox.
To reduce the number of emails that you have, you could also unsubscribe from newsletters that you don’t read anymore.
I’m a big fan of allocating dedicated time for checking and responding to emails rather than being in the inbox all the time. And there’s another trick that I use. Maybe you also faced with that, right?
You, you want to send an email to a client, you open your email, you land on your inbox, and then you see something that you need to respond to. And instead of writing the email that you wanted to, you start doing something else. And so, a trick that I use to prevent, myself from being sucked into that inbox is actually a start from Google Contact and from Google Contact you can then find the person you want to send an email to, and you can initiate a message from there, which will then pop up a new window or if you want to reply to an email, it’s also possible from Google Contacts because you will see the recent conversations, in the Google Contacts area. And so to reply to a recent message, it’s easy. You just click on it and you will be able directly to do that. And that for me is a, is a good time saver.
Content creation example
An example of weekly tasks, something that you do not necessarily do every day, but a few times per week would be content creation. For that, if you are able to batch content creation. So for instance with this podcast, right, I’m usually batching the preparation of several episodes.
So I do the preparation of 2, 3, 4 episodes, and then when I do the recording, it’s the same, I batch the recording so that I don’t have this the setup right. When I do a podcast, I use my iPhone as a, as a camera, I unplug my time machine hard drive. So there are a bunch of things that I need to do and by batching, it allows me to do these kinds of tasks just once, record a bunch of episodes, and then replug everything I need to.
If we’re talking about blog posts you can also reuse templates. So if you have templates with already the, the bullet points or the outline or the structure of your blog posts, that can save you time.
In the case now of the Macpreneur podcast, I have created templates for the recording . And so I have some scenes, predefined scenes, and for every episode, I just need to change a little bit of text.
Invoicing & bookkeeping example
Now if we go to an example of a monthly task this could be for instance, invoicing. One thing that we all face as solopreneur is: late payment reminders, right? And we’re back to the email example. Well, if you can find a tool or a service that automates these late payment reminders, that’s something actually you don’t need to do.
And so, for instance, I’m using FreshBooks, and I can configure that, for instance, I think I have five days after the due date, the first late payment reminder is sent, and then I think it’s 10 days, and then I have another one after 15 days. And having those automations in place allow you to save a lot of time.
Another example is for bookkeeping. I guess that you are using web services a lot like me. And so now, nowadays we receive those invoices via email as PDF attachment, and it’s really a pain to go through the inbox, open the email, save the attachment and so on manually. Well, it’s actually possible to automate the filing of those invoices automatically.
And so the way I do is I use Gmail filters. So based on the subject line, based on the the sent address. I am able to filter and add a, a small label. I, I put the label finance on that one. And then if you couple that with other web automation tools like Zapier, it’s possible then to save automatically those PDF invoices into a Google Drive folder of choice.
And then, at least this part is done for you. You don’t need to click on all those attachments to download them. They will arrive automatically on your Mac, if you have installed a Google Drive client.
Recap
So, yes, to recap a little bit on this episode, the best is to start streamlining your business by prioritizing tasks based on their frequency.
And so based on that, you will tackle the things that you repeat multiple types daily first. Then you will move to weekly, then monthly, quarterly, and the things that you do maybe once or twice or a couple of times a year.
And the idea is to implement tools, techniques that will help you then optimize each task.
I like the framework of Eliminate, Automate, Delegate.
Always start by looking at things that you could actually eliminate, not do, and the next step would be then automate. Never delegate something that can be automated. Automate first and whatever you can’t automate, then you could then delegate.
So, yeah, that’s this episode. In the next episode, we will dive into time tracking. It’s a technique that can help you gain control over your time and also boost your productivity.
So that’s it for today. I hope this episode has helped you decide where to start your streamlining efforts.
Check out macpreneur.com/tools for a list of all the tools that I use to streamline my own business.
So it’s macpreneur.com/tools.
And until next time, I’m Damien Schreurs, wishing you a great day.