Automate…

One of the more important aspects of working with No Fixed Office, i believe is attempting to cut out repetitive tasks. The kind of tasks that you tend to keep to do lists, and diaries to remind yourself to do them.

As you may or may not have been able to determine from some of my other posts, having a portable office should be about minimizing what you have for your office, so carrying extra things like a diary or such is probably not really the ideal situation to be moving towards. The only additional thing besides a laptop and the few accessories i have previously mentioned that i carry is an idea’s journal. While you may think why not use the calander on the computer, and i do agree this is another potential idea, but really why not just play along and try to cut out some of the tasks that are a little repetitive.

BANK TRANSFERS

If you do a lot of bank transfers, or payments, then consider setting them up as auto repeating, if they are on a set day of the week or month. If they are not regular and only as needed look to setup the people you pay in your online banking so that it is quick and easy to log on and initiate the transfer without needing to find bank account details each time you want to make a transfer.

PAYING BILLS

This is something that can be applied not only to your business but also to your personal life. The number of bills you get each month is probably more then you think, and the time that it takes when you receive each one, to either organise and remember to pay them on time or such, can often be a significant amount of time over the month. If possible set up direct debits for the bills, this will cover almost all the bills, and mean that they are all paid ontime. If there are any that you cannot arrange to pay by direct debit, then save yourself the hassle and pay the bill when you receive it, then file it. This saves double handling and also the potential to forget to make a payment.

TAKING ORDERS FROM CLIENTS

If you have a business that primarily focuses on the sales of products, and you find that you spend a lot of time taking orders from clients, then there may be potential to save some time. First consider setting up an online store, you could save both yourself and your customer time by allowing them to browse your products, with prices and place their order without needing to contact you.

INTERNET FAQ

Customers often have a lot of questions about products or services, and often you will find that some of those questions are the same. Setting up an area on your website where you list a common set of questions with the answers, can often avoid some of the calls that you get from customers, and also saves you answering the same question with the same answer many times.

SAVE TIME TO IMPROVE QUALITY

The overall goal of saving time should be to improve the quality of other area’s of your business. So if you are saving time by setting up an online store or FAQ for your website, but it means your customers actually get a worse experience, then you may want to reconsider how this is going to help your business. However if by doing so the clients, will get a better experience in dealing with your business then it is really something you should consider.

Additionally saving time on repetive tasks really will be something that can give you more time for your customers. Also it will be something that can give you more time for other area’s of your life, if not for your business.