I’ve personally invested in multiple scheduling apps and automation tools over the years, and what I’ve consistently realized is that your personal time is one of your greatest assets. Whether it’s saving an hour in my day that I could spend teaching my son how to throw a ball, or hitting the gym to prioritize my health, I’ve learned how impactful it can be to reclaim my time. It’s easy for entrepreneurs and leaders to get caught up in using the same strategies that have worked for them in the past, which often makes changing habits difficult. It’s also challenging to make an initial investment in the time or resources needed to set up these automations. However, today you can leverage technology more easily than ever before. Thanks to automation becoming more commonly used and its educational resources being readily available, implementing it is a much simpler process than it once was.
Here’s a simple guide to how entrepreneurs can automate their lives, both professionally and personally, using technology:
1. Automate Repetitive Digital Tasks With Automation Software
I admit I’m biased about Zapier—it started from our office during a Missouri Startup Weekend, and I’ve been friends with its founders since the beginning. Nevertheless, I believe Zapier is one of the most powerful automation tools for entrepreneurs. To save time at work, consider implementing automation for these common tasks.
- Lead Management: Automatically add new leads from a Facebook ad or website form into a CRM like HubSpot or Salesforce.
- Scheduling: When someone books a meeting via Calendly, Zapier can add the event to your Google Calendar, send a confirmation email, and even create a Zoom meeting link.
- E-commerce: Automatically send new Shopify orders to your accounting software or create Trello cards for order fulfillment.
- Content Posting: Publish new blog posts across multiple social platforms without manually logging in to each one.
To test how much time I’m spending on tasks, I document a week of work. The following week, I consult with people knowledgeable about automation tools to see if there’s a way to implement an automated process for any of those tasks. Once I choose an automation tool, I then document another week of work. To calculate the time saved, I compare how much time I spent using automation to what I previously spent without it. Being able to visualize this saved time is useful because it shows how my initial investment truly pays off.
2. Delegate Chores To Smart Home And Office Gadgets
Your time is best spent making decisions, not vacuuming or mowing the lawn. Smart home gadgets have made it easier than ever to outsource personal chores.
For example, I started gifting smart vacuums and mops to nonprofits I work with. I remember buying a robot vacuum back when they were first introduced to the market, and I recall how quickly it would fly off my stairs. However, technology has come a long way since then, and it’s amazing how these devices can efficiently clean a house or office. After trying a variety of brands, I landed on Yeedi. I wanted a solution that could handle extensive cleaning for a household or office, especially for someone with disabilities. For instance, the M14 Plus not only vacuums and mops, but also self-dumps dirty water and even self-dries. When I saw this, I ended up getting units for a couple of my offices, and now I don’t even worry about picking up a broom or a mop. Consider anything that regularly takes time out of your day and see if there’s a quality product that could automate that task. Buying back your time with such gadgets is well worth the investment. A bonus: it also makes things look more technologically advanced when people visit your house or the office.
3. Use Smart Assistants To Streamline Daily Routines
Smart assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple’s Siri can handle countless small tasks that would otherwise interrupt your flow. As simple as it was a year or so ago, I recall an instance where an employee, while looking at a number in an email, asked Siri to call the number and read it off. I’ve personally lost count of how often I’ve copied and pasted information, then navigated away from an email, only to discover something doesn’t work when a simple voice command could have resolved it. Here are some additional ways to integrate smart assistants into your daily tasks for enhanced productivity.
- Set Reminders and Timers: Voice-controlled reminders to help you remember follow-ups, take breaks, or switch tasks at the right time.
- Control Schedules via Smart Devices: Everything from coffee makers to lighting systems can be automated to save time managing an office or a home.
- Information on Demand: Ask for weather updates, quick calculations, or the latest business news without picking up your phone or opening a browser, enabling you to multitask and continue working with minimal disruption.
When integrated with other smart devices, these assistants can trigger routines that automate your environment according to your schedule.
4. Automate Financial Management
Managing finances can be a significant time drain. Fortunately, financial apps have evolved considerably, now automating expense categorization and computations that once required manual effort. Whether for personal or business expenses, many of these processes can now be automated. Here are some tools to help with that.
- QuickBooks and Xero: Integrate your business accounts, payment processors, and banks to automatically categorize transactions, send invoices, and generate reports.
- Expensify or Shoeboxed: Automatically scan and log expenses from receipts and match them to transactions.
Simply reviewing automated data for a few minutes each week, instead of handling everything manually, can save a lot of time.
Conclusion
Automation may seem robotic at times, but it offers undeniable benefits in time savings. All too often, leaders wear many hats, but not every task requires their direct attention. By leveraging various automation tools, software, and tactics, you’ll gain more freedom to innovate, lead, and grow your business with clarity and focus. Additionally, you can spend more of that redeemed time with the special people in your life.
Read the full article here
