AB: All-Round Nice Guy

Whether you make New Year’s Resolutions or not, January is the perfect time to do a little bit of navel gazing, and take a long hard look at your business - to think about the direction you want to take your business over the next 12 months.

If you’re currently taking time off from your small or solo business, then don’t panic - I won’t try to get you back in ‘the zone’ of work mode - but I’d like to leave you a few thoughts this month that you can mull over during your downtime, and let your subconscious do some prep work for your all-too-imminent return.

CARPE DIEM: START SOMETHING NEW

Seize the day, or the whole year for that matter! Put on your rose-coloured glasses for a few minutes, and begin to dream about what your business might look like this year.

Have you had new opportunities presented to you last year, that you can forsee hapenning this year? New staff to increase sales or customer service? New machinery or technology to reduce your labour or time for your most profitable tasks? Have you seen of new products or services that you could investigate that would compliment your skill set? Is there an opportunity to reinvent and remarket your least profitable products or services, to turn something cashflow neutral into cashflow positive? Or finally, is there a totally new product or service that you’ve been needing yourself, and it turns out that you are the perfect person to launch it to the world??

Think carpe diem, not carpal tunnel! Alternatively, think glass-half-full, not ‘hey, this isn’t what I ordered!’.

STREAMLINE THE THINGS THAT BUG YOU

I have a rule that I try to stick by: if I do a task once, fine; twice in a row, well, OK, but I begin to take notice; but if I do a repetitive task three times in a row, then I’m actively looking for a way to either automate the task, or at least to simplify the task to the lowest overhead possible.

There are thousands of tiny little tasks that well all do everyday - whether it’s ‘virtual’ tasks on the computer, or real-world processes and methodologies - there’s always a number of small repetitive tasks that need to be done to achieve the loftier goals.

In a perfect world, there would be a Big Red Buttonâ„¢ that we could press in the morning that would do all our repetitive tasks for us, letting us concentrate on the bigger picture stuff that makes our businesses hum. But in reality, there will always be side tasks and prep work that are required to get our main work done.

The question is, how can we best reduce the time/cost impact of the things that bug us? The law of diminishing returns states that throwing units of time or money at a problem makes quick gains in the short term, but later on, the same unit of time or money only returns comparitively minor improvements. If something is only 80% efficient, one go at refining it might take it to 95% efficiency, but further efforts may only bring it to 98% then 99% efficiency - which is all admirable - but if there’s something that bugs you, that first attempt to streamline it might be the best investment you could make - the best gains in the shortest time. It’s all sigma limits, if you’re into that sort of thing.

ORGANISE YOURSELF BETTER

Vertical stacking? Anyone? If your filing system where you work (be it your desk, or your computer, or both) looks like a small nuclear device has gone off, then a major clean out is in order.

End of year downtime is the perfect time to reassess the way you handle your ins and outs: whether you’re a paper-based person or an email-based person, let me introduce you to a worldwide counter-culture in business circles called ‘Getting Things Done’, or GTD for short. It’s proclaimed as ‘the art of stress-free productivity’, and it largely consists of actively sorting out all that hits your desk into the *right* pile - and not just reacting to the latest and greatest issue that crosses your path.

The book that started it all, and the ‘grand theory’ can be found at: http://www.davidco.com - but the real practical aspects can be found at http://www.43folders.com - a blog and community of users all contributing so called ‘life-hacks’, indispensible pieces of advice on how to solve managing everyday work issues in the most productive and stress-free way possible. There’s even a subculture to the counter-culture who openly advocate - get this - keeping a notepad and pencil in your back pocket to *write things down* as opposed to buying the latest and greatest $1000 smart phone/PDA. Oooh. Rebels.

FIX THE PROVERBIAL LEAKY TAP

In every business, there are opportunities for things go a little wrong, but so very slowly that we overlook them during our busyness. Just like the statistics of how much water a slowly dripping tap can contribute to your overall water bill each year, it’s fitting that we also look back on the wastage that our businesses produces each year, too see where a few simple saving can add up to a large gain.

Are we ordering just-in-time, or in bulk? What is the overall cost of changing from purchasing in bulk to just-in-time - or from just-in-time to bulk? Different industries use different purchasing strategies, but how would my business benefit from adopting a strategy from another industry, so to be different than that of my competitors? How much spoilage do we face from over or under estimating, and how can we build a methodology of estimating that will more accurately reflect real-life?

With all these small gains, use the rule of diminishing returns, and make all the major gains you can, but don’t spend all your time tracking down that last 5 cents - focus on the bigger picture of doing what you can to tighten ship, and move forward.

PLAN FOR SOME DOWNTIME

Work hard, play hard. Finding a balance between work and your home life is vitally important, even moreso for people working in a small or solo business, where the line between where work ends and home life starts is typically blurry.

So this month, plan to make good use of the climate, and go out and get active.
Hit the beach, ride the rail trail, or at least find some time away from your workplace enough to let your conscious have fun, and let your subconscious be planning this years’ strategies for you…

AB out