How much free time do any of us really have? We all go about our day to day lives assuming there will always be a tomorrow. Sorry. . . but it's time to get off Fantasy Island! We are all finite individuals. At some moment that none of us can predict we are going to die.
Now I don't know about you but I know that when all is said and done I'm not going to regret busting my butt working for that last hour or that last $100 I made. Yet I certainly will long for that extra 10 minutes holding my grand daughter or that last few minutes giving my wife a kiss and telling her how much I love her.
The truth is that most of us work because we have to work. Why? The mortgage has to be paid. The electric bill is overdue. The cable bill is late. The car insurance policy is up for renewal next week. Not to mention we have to eat. Financial pressures that's why. If we were all rich we would probably be doing fun things every moment. Once again, it's time to get off Fantasy Island. Work brings in the money and money pays the bills.
So what can make things a bit easier? In one word "automation." Do you like to waste time? Then why do it? I am a firm believer that virtually anything can be automated. If it is done right then automation almost invariably frees up time. If your automation plan is executed exceptionally well then it may save you money and go so far as to make you substantial money without so much as lifting a finger.
For example, how many people are still wasting time and losing money by typing every letter and every envelope on an old fashioned typewriter. There might just be a few in the business world.
How much easier did the electronics industry make things when they used a little bit of automation and created the electric typewriter? It was nothing short of tremendous! This modification from a manual, finger-powered typewriter to an electric typewriter was a form of automation.
Yet most of us aren't there anymore. It is estimated that about 65% of all households in the United States have at least one computer and most have more than one. Computers have been a huge innovation and automation for business and personal purposes. They have gone way beyond the ability of the human person using a manual typewriter to create accurate and professional letters, brochures, etc.. in less time with less effort. Computers have resulted in an increase in free time and increase in profits that far outweighs the initial cost of the computer.
Yet there is whole new world of automation that you may want to consider. I call it "Process Automation." It can certainly incorporate technological advances, but the idea is to motivate you to address the process.
Let me give you an example.
My wife has a business. Initially it was a few web pages that she created herself and she took calls on. It wore her out. Honestly, she didn't want my input, probably because I offered it in more of a critical than constructive manner and so I stayed out of things.
Eventually, I just got so frustrated with hearing how difficult it was for her to really make the kind of profit that she wanted to make that I decided to help her.
What did I do? First, I saw what she was doing and noted all the different things that went into her business. Then I realized that there was only a limited amount that I could do without "invading her business space." Mostly, I saw that she couldn't really market around the clock and have orders coming in while she was sleeping and then process those orders because of the way she was doing things. So I opted to search for a good internet store software that I could install on her internet hosting plan that could automate many of the things she does manually.
I found a free internet store software that would help her automate her business. I installed it on my web hosting plan and asked her if she would check it out for me and give me her opinion because I was thinking of putting a store on the internet but I wanted to make sure the store was pretty good first. My wife looked at it and she loved it and asked if I could install it for her. Now she has built a very good business at WholesaleQuiltBatting.com
What did this store do for her? It allowed her to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week receiving and processing orders. It sent out the order confirmation emails for her immediately after the order was placed. It immediately notified my wife of an order, what was ordered and let her know if she had it in stock or if she had to order it. It automated virtually 65% of what my wife had been wasting her time on.
What happened? First, my wife found herself with lots of free time because she had much more time after she processed her daily orders. Yet my wife had not reached the amount of money she wanted to make from her business. So guess what happened next? My wife opted to take her new found abundance of time from her new found automation system and she searched for more vendors, new and better products, and competitive price shopping.
Suddenly the automation took on a new life. My wife found herself without the time anymore because she used the freedom gained by the automation to increase her business. Now, my wife has a higher business volume and much less time on her hands but she is in a better financial position.
The point of this particular automation article is simple. Look at what you are doing and ask yourself this . . . Could you be doing something better? Could some part of what you do be made easier, faster, simpler? It is almost a certainty that you have missed something that you could automate to free up your time and make your life or your business easier or help you increase your income.
Is there something in your business that you do that involves creating letters or typing? How fast do you or your secretary type? 60 words per minute averaging out the day perhaps? Do you know that Dragon Naturally Speaking can handle about 104 words per minute when accurately trained? Do you type your own work, blogs, web pages, press releases? Is it worth $39.00 to buy a speech recognition program that types what you say at that speed to automate your document creation process?
Do you want to automate your email marketing? Or perhaps your email newsletter? What if you use an internet autoresponder system to automate the mailing and timing of your emails? Might that free up your time a bit? ABSOLUTELY! What if you use your new found speech to text program and you dictate your series of emails to market for you? Could that free up some time? Sure it could! Perhaps even 10 fold! Automation is amazing!
Both my example of my wife and the samples I have given above are examples of "process automations." In every instance, it is best to do this.
1) Write down the entire process that you go through in your business or with your personal life on a particular endeavor or job that you do.
2) Isolate that process into each step that makes up the whole process.
3) Determine if there are one, two or more steps that can be automated in one way or another.
4) Determine what ways are available to automate the step or steps you have identified in your process.
5) Select what you believe to be the best way to automate the step or steps of your process and try your new automation plan.
6) Examine the results of automating your process. Did it work? Did you free up more time? Was it worth it? How much time did you free up? How much money did you save? How much money did you make? Can this automation process be refined to make it work better? Might another automation plan you came up with work better?
7) Revise or refine your automation plan or consider another plan and its merits over your current plan. You may see how another automation plan will work better or how simply revising your plan will make things work even better.
8) Try the refined or new plan.
9) Review the entire automation plan again by examining its results as you did in Paragraph Number 6 above.
Automation of time and money wasting processes is the surest way to free up your time, save your money and make you more money.
Remember SBA! See it! Believe it! Achieve it!
Authored By: Christopher A. Pearsall
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