I am not an early adopter. I never have been. I dislike being the guinea pig. And updates seem to come quicker now than ever. The pace of change keeps accelerating. It compels me to adopt new capabilities and technologies faster than ever. I know technology can make my life easier, but not at first. There’s a learning curve to mastery. It’s frustrating to know what needs to be done, but clumsy and inefficient at doing it.
Have you ever felt that way?
If you’re an early adopter and get a charge out of figuring things out and adapting to new tech. Good for you. Go ahead and jump to the next article. But the rest of you, read on…
“Everything is Hard before it is Easy” says Goethe, and he’s right. No one is a master at the beginning of any endeavor.
And new applications are time-consuming to learn and master. Even infrequent tasks in familiar apps can cause trouble, for instance, my banking app. The automatic payments functions are buried within in it and I’m a set-it-and-forget-it type. Fast-forward six months from now when I want to change or add something it take a frustrating sleuthing through every menu item and tab to find the function I need.
That may be fine for something you do once in a great while, but for more common things, like a website that needs regular updates it can be an obstacle. Especially when mental energy is low. It’s hard to get started, knowing that you face a time-consuming, frustrating task. More often than not, I would avoid this beast.
Then I learned about procedure lists. I knew about “standard operating procedures” (SOPs) having worked in the corporations for most of my professional life, but I learned that even for a small business like mine they make a big difference.
SOPs are helpful for every repetitive task a business or office has. Bookkeeping, scheduling, and project management, to name a few. There are also many other benefits to having SOPs:
· They help train new employees and get them up to speed quickly
· They allow for consistent cross-training the team for greater flexibility in roles
· They ensure proper coverage for work during vacations and other absences
· They standardize tasks for efficiency and consistency
· They help identify and categorize the tasks of running your business. Many of which may be outside your zone of genius or affinity. These are the first ones to delegate when it’s time to expand. And the training is already in place.
I’ve taken this advice for L.A. Eddins Design and am working on my own SOPs. Starting with that pesky banking app! And at this moment I am capturing the steps in posting my blog and social media.
And while it takes an extra investment of time in the beginning it will save time in the long run. It also eliminates any excuse for not getting those beastly tasks done.
What a time saver!!
Do you have and use SOPs? Are they useful or not. I’d love to hear about your experience.
