We were speaking with Heidi from Evolve Your Wedding Business recently and she told us about some advice she had on her blog about time management. If you read our post about wedding planner myths you’ll remember us mentioning how long it takes to organise a wedding. It got us thinking, how can we work more efficiently? Here Heidi gives her thoughts on being “too busy”.

“I’m busy” is quite possibly the most overused phrase among small business owners and it’s not because they’re actually busy doing things that matter, it’s for a lot of other reasons that might surprise you. Val at Aspire & Grow wrote a great post about how busy is the new lazy, and she’s right. Not creating, learning and implementing systems to make your life and work easier and more efficient is lazy. Val is actually in the process of writing a post for you all about how to set these systems up in your business and that will be featured on my blog next week.

So it’s not a being too busy problem, it’s an organisation problem (unless of course it’s one of those deeper psychological problems I mentioned). I hear people tell me all the time how hard it is to keep up with their email or social media or about a million other things, but it’s not if you use the right tools and approach it strategically. My natural approach to solving problems is to ask myself “Is there an easier way to do this?” and that is how I manage to get so much done. We have access to all of the information in the world and the answer to that question is a Google search away.

I want you to adopt that mindset and look at the things that suck your time. Is there an easier, more efficient way to do them?

The idea of setting up systems in your business can sound daunting and abstract so let’s look at how your life would change if you didn’t have systems in place.

• Do you do all of your grocery shopping at one time? That’s a system! Without that system, you’d be going to the store every time you ran out of something and you’d probably do nothing else in life but grocery shop.
• Do you wash your clothes in loads? Of course you do! Washing them one at a time would be a waste of energy and would take too long.
• When running errands, do you go to several places in one trip? That’s a lot more efficient than going home between each stop isn’t it?

You see, you already have systems in your life. You just have to take this idea and apply it to your business.

Here is how I use systems in my business:

• I do all of my bookeeping & accounting in 1 sitting on a set day of the month.
• I check in with my monthly goals in 1 sitting on a set day of the month.
• I Buffer as many social media updates as I can at one time so I don’t have to search for something to say on social media (which will inevitably lead to getting lost on something interesting I find) and it only takes me about 30 minutes per week.
• I plan out my topics for my blog ahead of time so I’m not left with nothing to write about at the last minute.
• I do all of my content creation in blocks so that I can use that momentum to get a lot done in one sitting.
• I have a very specific process I go through after I publish a blog post to promote it.
• I ALWAYS schedule things in Google Calendar, even if it’s just something for me. My content creation blocks are in there as appointments with myself.
• I use Unroll.me to manage my email and I only check that folder once a day. This helps keep my focus and prevents me from getting distracted by emails.
• This is the most important one: I have a system set up to generate leads consistently, nurture them and convert them into customers. My Mind The Gap Course teaches you exactly how to do that in your own business so you never have to chase after potential clients again.

If you’re serious about getting out of overwhelm, you won’t want to miss the exciting free webinar I’ve got for you. It will help you get systems in place in your business and put them on autopilot. To find out more and save your spot visitwww.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/webinar