Three Ways to Remove Chaos from Your Business

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Pro Video Pages Webinar Series. Joining me today is Susan Fenema, chaos eradicating officer, that's CEO, of Beyond the Chaos. At Beyond the Chaos, they help small business owners get out of the day to day of their business operations. Welcome, Susan.

Thanks, Anne. I'm so excited to bring some value today.

Great. I am too. I am too. The topic, 3 ways to control chaos in your small business. I had so much fun, planning this with you and can't wait to hear what you have to share. So I will let you take it away.

Well, I'm ready to jump in here. So we're gonna talk about the top three ways that the, business owner can get chaos out of their business. We're all suffering with it. Right? So what do you feel like when you're suffering with chaos? You know, you might be struggling with projects, with finishing them. Maybe you can't manage the scope or budget on your project, or maybe you don't even know where you are on any of your projects.

You get pulled in all these multiple different directions. You just feel like you're responding. I mean, just like the crazy person on the screen. Right? You know, if you're working with subcontractors and other team members, they're pulling you in different directions. You're having to answer their questions all the time. You know, don't you just wish that you had a way to keep your clients from being mad at you?

And, you know, they're responding to your invoices mad, and they don't wanna pay you, and it's so much stuff. Don't you wish there was a better way? Well, there is. You want to get away from your business running you, and you want to start running it. Right? You want to get control back. So let's start with, you know, what's the root problem.

Part of that root problem is the mindset of always responding, and you're not able to take back the reason that you started this business. Right? You wanted to do something amazing. You want your life back now, though. You feel like it's kind of overwhelmed you. So that mindset of turning it around to I'm gonna control this, is really one of the first steps here. One of the next things is to understand that, you know, all businesses have the same challenges.

You're not alone. Don't feel like, man, I can't do it. It is a lot. It is hard to run your own business. And so most business owners are suffering under the same challenges. We're gonna talk about some structure here, but one of the things I don't want a small business owner to hear is, oh, let's put a lot of bureaucracy in place. That's not the point here.

We wanna set up systems so that you're able to be set free, not to rein you in. So there are 3 ways that we're gonna jump into. The first is systemizing. That's gonna be process development, that kind of thing, developing policy. You know, that's more for multipurpose or, multi multi person teams, and then also putting some procedures in place too. Managing your projects, simply. We wanna make sure that that delivery process is solid so that you can go sell more into it.

But if you can't deliver, you just break it more if it's not being handled well. And then the big one for you as the owner is how to manage your interruptions. How do you not get pulled in multiple different directions? So let's start with systemizing first. You know, when do you need a system? That's the first question that comes into play. And number 1 is to be able to repeat your successes.

How do you consistently do the same thing so that, you're able to succeed over and over and over again the same way. You know, the other is to stop reinventing the wheel. I'll bring some examples of this, you know, up in the next, slide. But, you know, every time you feel like, I've done this before. Why can't I remember why? That's a good a good key. You need a system.

Another is to start delegating. If you feel like everything's on you and nobody else knows how to do what you're doing, this is a place to look at systemization. And this gives you the opportunity to be able to start working on your business rather than in it. I know we've all heard that cliche before, but it's a real thing. If you're just working day to day in it and you can't delegate, you don't have the time to focus strategically on what is the big marketing thing that's gonna change your world, or what is the new offering you could put forward, or what are the relationships you need to build? How do you sell better? If you're focusing on little bitty things, you're not able to see those things, and that affects your long term business value.

If you don't have systems in place, you know, it's hard to sell your business. You tend to just have a client list. You don't have something that you can one day transition out of either by selling or handing down to your family members. So, you know, how do we know what to systemize? That gets hard. You know, where do we start? It seems like everything's in the way. Right? So let's start by identifying bottlenecks.

Where are you trapped? Where are you holding up the process? That's a for the first steps that you want to do it. You know, when you're the only one who knows how to do it, you're the only one who can perform the task. The next is when things seem messy or out of order or it's chaotic. You know? Maybe everybody's running around and not being very efficient, and they're they're asking a ton of questions that it seems like they should know the answers to, this is a a good place too.

Anytime steps seem excessive or redundant. You're like, didn't we just do this yesterday? Why are we now doing this? Feels like we went backwards. This is a place that you want to look at creating a system or a process. Another, and this is just ancient history. It happens all the time.

Hey, why are we doing it this way? Ask that a lot because what we want to do is simplify everything. And it turns out that a lot of times the reason that we're doing it this way is because we've always done it this way. And it might go back to 15 years ago. You had a bookkeeper who didn't like technology, and that's just how they were gonna do it. And so that's how you're still doing it. So make sure you're getting to the root of why.

So ask multiple times. And if you get that answer, well, we've always done it this way. Okay. Ask one more time. Wait. Why have we always done it this way? Those are areas that might need some upgrading, in the systemization area.

The other is that if you're finding specific areas are costing too much, you're spending too many resources on it, you know, whether that's time, money, or people, you wanna make sure that those areas are things that you dig into to figure out, hey. Let's simplify. Let's streamline. Let's systemize. I have, some suggestions that of places that all businesses need some process, and we wanna start with sales. So what is your sales process? You know, what happens when a client comes into the business?

Do you have outbound? How are you tracking the leads? How are you making sure you don't drop a lead?

What is your follow-up? When do you write a proposal? How many meetings do you do for free before you write that proposal? Then how do you get paid?

You know, that's a big one. Do we get paid before we start work on the project? Do we get paid after we do a certain number of hours? Is there a deposit? All of those things need to come into play too, and it needs to be documented. When I'm saying process here, I don't mean, oh, yeah. We know the steps.

I mean, write them down. Running payroll is another one. This should not take hours. This should be simple and in a lot of cases can be very automatic very automated and streamlined. Opening projects is another one. How do we open a new project when a new, a new client comes into play? And more importantly, how do we finish and close projects?

Are we asking clients for referrals? Are we, upselling them on something else? What is that process to get a great review on Yelp or Google or wherever you track your reviews? You know, the the point of process is to take all the things that you're doing, all the little steps that make something happen and document it. Because the way to do a big thing is by doing a whole bunch of little things. You know, we worked with a, a winery company or, I'm sorry, a winery accounting company.

They only served wineries. Kind of a cool job. But they had some repeating processes that they had to do in their structure as far as, you know, how many cases have you put out? What's the bottling run? These were different kinds of measures than most accountants might have to measure. So if you can repeat that process that you have to do every time there's a bottling run, You're gonna start to streamline because you have a checklist. You're not having to remember and reinvent the wheel again.

So these are ways that, that it helps to move your business forward and to simplify the work. Let's also think about the influence that software has on your business. You know, we can't live in this world these days without technology. If you're trying to do things on paper, you're gonna fall behind very quickly. Especially in a hybrid or virtual world, you have to be able to share things digitally. It makes you be able to go faster when you can collect the data and information, faster than on paper. I mean, even just think about, whether or not you want your client having to print out a document, sign it, scan it back in, and figure out how to send it to you back, as opposed to just doing a digital signature, especially if that's holding up getting a new client or getting paid.

You know, those are the types of things that software can have an influence on. So when you're working on these processes, we want to think about how your software plays into it.

So what is your CRM? HubSpot is our favorite, but, you know, Pipedrive is good. There's Zoho. There are ton of different CRMs. It's important to use one. That's how you don't drop your leads. That's how you make sure that you're following up on your sales.

For those who don't know what a CRM is, it's a customer resource manager, and it is a way to keep track of everything. I sometimes call it a contact resource manager because I keep track of things in it other than just new customers or clients. The next is how you manage your finances. Gone are the days that we're doing it in Excel. You need a software tool. Most small businesses, QuickBooks is a great tool for that, but there are others. You know, and you can export if you need to massage those numbers in Excel.

But you wanna make sure that you have a digital way to get paid, to invoice people. There are also probably quite a few, industry specific tools that let you do this as well. And where do you manage your projects? How are you making sure that the work that you assured your client would get done on time, on budget, and within this specific scope?

How are they tracked? How does your team know what to do? Project management tool I love is teamwork. com. Big fan. But in a specific industries, it might make more sense in the trades to use something like Jobber or Connecting. Those those affect how your process works.

So it's important to look into what you're going to use before you start figuring out how to use it and how to put it into play. How are you tracking your time sheets? You know, some of those tools come with that, but there might also be other ways to make sure you're tracking your time. If you're doing it on paper, making people take pictures of it and sending it in, it's gonna be a lot harder for you to manage. So a digital way to do that is important. Where are you storing your client data?

Are you using Dropbox? Are you using Google Drive?

You know, all of those things matter. Are you on Microsoft? How are you managing client support? How do you handle all of those? Are you using a tool like Freshdesk or Zendesk or Teamworkdesk? That is important and and plays into the software or it plays into the process you're developing too. And then how do you communicate with your team?

Are you using Teams or Slack? Those are my recommendations over, trying to do everything via email or on personal devices. But what are the rules surrounding that? That's another process area that you can focus on. And here's the other thing. As you get these software tools in place, putting the process around how you're using them is very important because these tools are not magic. You don't just put them out there and then all of a sudden all these things are organized. You know?

They really have to have some structure around them. Think about if you have, for simplicity's sake, a hammer, a nail, and a picture, and they're sitting on the the table. Well, getting them hung at the right height in the right room and on a stud or with the right anchor, you know, all of that doesn't happen unless there's around it, unless there's some further instructions. If you don't have any other instructions besides leaving them out for your team to use, they'll either end up on the wrong room at the wrong height or not done at all. So building that structure around your tools and including your tools in your process and then you and then you don't require your team to use it, it's wasted time and energy. To that point, you are setting the example. So you have to follow all of the processes that you're putting in play.

If you start breaking those rules, those laws that you've written, then you're giving permission to everyone else to do it. If the systems aren't enforced, they're just plain out worthless. So, you know, if you're not going to hold people accountable to them, don't bother starting. You have to be committed to them. You wanna make sure that you're sharing them with the team and with the clients as well.

This isn't a vacuum. You know, they they have to know and be trained on what the processes are, so you have to roll those out. You can talk through them too. When you find violators, you can look at it, you know, a couple of ways. 1, you can do a gentle reminder to those who are violating the process. You don't want to continually say no one's doing it. If no one's doing it, there's some other reasons we wanna check into as to why.

But, usually, it's not no one. Usually, it's one specific person or 2 specific people. So address them directly and find out why they're not doing it. Other beauty of having this software is it gives you a little bit of a management tool before you have to go ballistic. Right? You're able to say, well, we have this process in place. We have these steps. What happened?

How did the process fail us? And then you can work with that, that team member to improve the process, or maybe it's a red alert that they're just not paying attention at all. And if that's the case, you might want to escalate up to HR. You know, HR in a small business is often the small business owner. But, you know, is this grounds for write up? You know, do you even need to fire them? You don't want somebody in your company that's just stirring it up because it makes it very hard to scale the business.

And it also starts to give everybody else, you know, that feeling of, well, why do I have to do it this way? You know, they don't have to do it this way. So it makes that little bad apple syndrome going on.

So that is important to remember. When you're documenting these processes, setting up these policies, and all of that kind of thing, you wanna make sure that you're willing to hold people accountable to it. Also, remember that this is not one and done. You when you document a process, when you write up that sales process, it might change because systems grow as you grow. There might be something that you learn that you wanna include. Oh, wow. When we when we don't do this, this bad thing happens.

By all means, let's make sure we do this every time. Add it to your process. Make sure you educate everybody on the change. Roll it out.

Now it's new. You know, part of this is we wanna get input on the team on what's working and what's not. This is gonna help them adopt it. It's gonna help you reinforce that this is the way it works for us and for our company. And it also means that they're not going rogue, that they're not getting somewhere and saying, well, this isn't working, and they're just trying something random. That's why the the input and the listening is so important. You know, one big part of this is making sure that someone is designated as the keeper of the process, a process champion, so to speak, somebody who knows where they are, is the go to to change something, knows how to roll them out, knows where they're stored, all that great thing that is important to make sure that it continues to work.

You wanna review your systems annually. You know, if you're growing quickly, you might even wanna do it quarterly at first or maybe when they're first rolled out, but at least annually. And I always recommend look at the least busy time of the year to jump in and do that. So if you're slow during the holidays at at Christmas, great. That's a time. In the summer, you know, it really depends on, how your business, reacts. But pick a time during that, sit down, read through them, make sure your software hasn't changed, make sure that, you know, the the outcomes are what you're expecting and and that kind of thing.

The details can be updated and then shared back out. Alright. So what are some takeaways from this first section of systemizing your business? The first thing is let's identify how you, the business owner, are spending your time. Do that first and then choose the top five things to get off your plate. This goes back to that, bottleneck thing. Right? What are those things that you're holding everybody else up on?

Pick those top five things, and I recommend that if they're financial, lean towards those first, and then come to some of the others. And then simply record a video or write a document explaining how you do it and delegate it to someone else. Make sure that they walk through it once, where they can ask questions, and then you're ready to go. A video is sometimes the easiest, fastest way to get there. I do recommend that if you have videos that you do also change them to written documents because it's a lot easier to tweak a written document if one little thing changes than it is to go back and have to rerecord the whole video. So something to consider, but that first video, that is a great first step. So take these action items, and that will help you with the first way you can get beyond your chaos.

So let's talk about the next one. That's project management. I touched on this a little bit, but, you know, we wanna make sure that you are not using email. Repeat after me. Email is not a project management tool. This is not an efficient way to manage projects if you're just going back and forth. You can't drive it because you don't have a schedule.

You can't, find out where you are. You know, if you send something to a client and you're waiting for something back, you can hear the age old, oh, well, I asked them for that, but I haven't heard back. Okay. Well, how long ago? Has it been 2 months? You know, we wanna think about that to keep things going on. You know, project management tools are important to pull into your business.

I can I can absolutely recommend teamwork.com, but asana, monday.com, Trello, And there are other industry specific, that add some great structure to your business, and to your projects? Connect Team, Jobber. There are all sorts of them. So finding somebody to help you identify what the right tool is for you is important. And then also using a consultant to set it up so that it runs well will help you get there. Most of these services have, you know, people who are focused on setting them up, so you can usually find them pretty easily. Other part, and an often overlooked part of project management tools are status meetings.

Just regularly scheduling these meetings with your clients and with your team so that you don't end up interrupted. They always will be like, oh, yeah. I can just talk to them on Monday when we have our status meeting. I don't have to call 3 times during the week. And then at that status meeting, we're clearly defining where are we against scope, where are we against budget, how's the timeline, and are there any stoppers, that are preventing us from moving forward? Those just put on the calendar every Mondays at 2 o'clock. Right? And that way, you're set to go.

And here's another very often overlooked project management tool, the proposal. If your proposal or your contract is not clear with your client of exactly what you're delivering, how long it will take, and how long how much it will cost, that's going to make it very hard to project manage that through to completion. And this applies to, you know, anything from installing an electrical generator at someone's home, to putting flooring down in someone's house, to building a custom software, solution. So it can go you know, in any of those cases, it's still a project, and we still have to define what we're delivering. So here are a few project management tips. 1st, in these tools, each client will need its own project so that they can interact with it. Every to do will need a date or deadline, so we wanna make sure that, you know, we are working the schedule.

Every to do needs a person responsible. So if somebody if somebody is not assigned, it's unlikely to get done. And if multiple people are assigned, it's unlikely to get done. So one responsible party is important. We also wanna include milestones, you know, sometimes rather than setting deadlines for each individual task. So, in some cases, you might need a whole bunch of little tasks to get there. But in other cases, setting that milestone of when the whole thing is going to be completed and then having those tasks under it is important.

I'm gonna come back to encouraging you to get help to build the structure or a template in the software so that you can lather, rinse, repeat. There are a lot of consultants out there that work in a lot of these tools and are experts in those areas and can help you pull your process, your specific company's process into those tools to make it more consistently executable. The next part is we wanna make sure that we're setting clear client expectations. And this comes to preventing some drama, preventing some chaos, and keeping everyone on the same page. So first, the scope is the scope. It's defined. We agreed to it.

The timeline is based on the scope. You know? We said we would, we would install your flooring, and we can do that because we have ordered the product by a certain date. We have gotten your deposit by a certain date. All of those things have to happen to achieve the end goal. Changes affect the price. Right? This is basic, nonemotional information.

If the client comes to you on the flooring project you're working on and adds, you know, a whole other room, of course, it's gonna be a different price, and it's probably gonna change the timeline. So the clear communication with consequences to your clients is what's important. And we can say this in a nice way. So you can always say yes. Yes and we'll need an extra week and an extra $5,000. There you go. So that's important, making sure that your client understands the consequences of their decisions, and sometimes they don't.

I've certainly worked with software development clients where the client asked for something, and the software developer went off and did it and then came back and billed them for 20 hours. And they were like, $2,000 or more, most likely. I I didn't think this was anything more than, you know, a $100 ask. So making sure that they understand what they're buying is important because they don't know what goes into it. That's why they hired you. The other, last thing I suggest is giving the clients a way to dream. I call this a wish list.

You can put it on any project. So as new things come up, let's go back to our flooring project. If we're installing flooring and, oh, yeah, all the baseboards are beat up and they probably either need to be replaced or they need to be painted, That could go on a wish list. This gives you an opportunity at the end of your project, after you've completed the flooring, to come back and be able to say, hey, client. We talked about this, you know, while we were working. Is that something you would like us to do next? Or when would you like a quote on this?

So it gives you an opportunity to continue that relationship with the client as well. Timeline setting can sometimes be hard. You know, how why is it important too? I think some people feel like, oh, well, we just respond when we get to the next step. But if you're doing that, you're not driving the client to completion. You're not working towards finishing the project. When you just let things happen, it ends up costing more and taking longer.

So you wanna start with when is the project due and build backwards from that. What are all of the little steps that need to go into it to get there? You know, we can look at this, like, if you're planning a dinner party. Hey. Everybody's gonna be sitting down at dinner at 7 o'clock on Saturday night. Oops. Forgot the wine. Right? Maybe that wine should have been 2 weeks prior to go to the liquor store to to buy.

And to buy the wine, you needed to know what food you were serving. So when were you menu planning? How are you making sure all of those things come out at the right time, especially, say, if you're working in a very small apartment with 1 oven and, you know, 4 burners of stove and limited refrigerator space. How are you going to make a big complex gourmet dinner come out for your guests all at the same time? It doesn't just accidentally happen. You have to build that structure. I don't know if y'all can tell, but I do love to cook.

You know, the other is you can also schedule it forward if there isn't a specific date to hit. So, you know, then you might be able to say, okay. Let's give us 3 weeks to do the discovery on what the client wants in their, in their new ad campaign. You know? And then after that, then we'll spend another month on developing all the creative concepts. There's no date required. But you still want to build the timeline because otherwise, that project will fall to the wayside and never get completed.

You will have a very unhappy client. Meeting the deadlines is the next part. So you really have to meet those deadlines. And if you're not going to meet them, communicate in advance that you're not meeting them. So let's go back to our flooring project. If all of a sudden, we're we're we have ordered the flooring only to find from the manufacturer that they're back ordering it for 3 months, This is something we wanna communicate to the client as soon as we know. We don't wanna wait until installation today day to say, oh, we're not gonna be there, And by the way, your stuff is 3 months late.

Tell them as soon as you know, and let's develop a different plan. It could be that maybe they want to choose a different flooring so that they can keep their timeline, or maybe they love that flooring and they're willing to wait the 3 months. But if you're not communicating in advance, then you're not going to have a happy client at the end. When you're building your timeline, make sure you're including all the major steps in the process. So, you know, if if you're doing, custom software development, you know, don't forget the testing at the end. You know, don't forget the internal back and forth that you might have to have to answer questions and do hard things. The major steps need to be included in that timeline so that you allow time for them.

And share the the schedule with everyone at the beginning. You wanna make sure that, you know, the the client knows when you're ordering flooring or when you're testing, and, you know, make sure that it works for all the individual's schedules. If you've decided you're going to go install an electrical electrical generator at somebody's house on May 18th, but you didn't tell them, and May 17th, you call to confirm, and they're like, oh, yeah.

We're on vacation. We won't be back for a month. That could be complicated. So you want to make sure that everybody is on board. Just like our dinner party, can everybody come? You know, that's one of the first things you want. So how do we accommodate changes?

Changes can totally, get you off track, and I could do a whole session on this. So, change management is hard. And what we have to remember is that an undelivered project has no value. None. If it's not delivered, they they get nothing out of it. So as a service professional or a trade professional, it is your responsibility to make sure that the client is getting the value for their money. You wanna make sure that everything is where they can use it when we agreed that they could use it.

So you wanna fulfill the scope first and then address the changes. Just like I was talking about with the baseboards, for example, we don't wanna stop putting the flooring down and start doing the baseboards, And then all of a sudden, the flooring is late, and the pool table, person comes back to set it up, and there's no flooring to set it on. Right? So all of those things play into your schedule, but you have to fulfill that scope first. Now if it makes sense to base to change the baseboards or, I'm sorry, to paint the baseboards while you know, and stop and do it then, then we want to rather than creating that wish list to address later like we discussed, we wanna stop and talk about this dramatic change. What's going to be the outcome? Okay. If we stop and paint all your baseboards right now when it is gonna be more cost effective and easier, this is the price it would be, and this is how much longer it would take, And these are the things we have to move back to accommodate that.

Let your client make the choice so you can stop and talk about those dramatic changes. And lastly, we want to consider issues beyond the, you know, their control, like the back order issue. Those things will come into play. Your wish list results, if you've built that well throughout the project as you have your next project, you can create change orders, and that can be either an individual group of tasks or individual tasks, whichever it may be. You can create change buckets. So do you know, is there a fee that if we go over and we can fit it in there, then we can use it? You might have that money on deposit.

You know, there's lots of ways to manage those, overages, and this can, as a small business professional, get make you more money. And so this is a good long term support option. Part of this as the owner is you want to project manage yourself in this tool too. So create a project for your business. Keep all your operational tasks with due dates assigned to you in that project. All of it's in the same place. Block out your calendar so you have time to execute these tasks.

That's important too. And look at the to do list, your to do list at the end of each day versus tomorrow's calendar to see, is it doable or do I need to adjust something? And the big part about this is being realistic. What is realistic in your time? Lastly, let's take away some action items from the project management feature here. First thing you wanna do is on the software, go review the subscriptions that you're paying for right now. Commit to 1 in each area, whether that's CRM, project management, finance.

Commit to 1 and cancel everything else. I'm gonna tell you that is your first step to starting the project management is committing to 1 project management tool, and then you can execute the rest of the actual project management. The last part of this is interruption management. Right? We've gotten the, fulfillment going. We wanna now make sure that we're able to move forward in preventing interruptions. I've touched on this a little bit, but calendaring, we wanna first take time on your calendar to block time for your most important tasks.

Now some people are gonna say, great. So I have this installation on this day. I need to be there.

And guess what? Not your most important task. Taking care of yourself first is your most important task. So think about your God or your spirit, your family, or your health. Those things need to go on your calendar first. Are you moving? Are you going to your kids' soccer game?

Are you going to the recital? And are are you spending time resetting your spirit so that you're fresh and and ready to go? If you are not filled up first, you cannot fill other people's buckets.

Next, block your business focus time. This is the time you're going to spend working on your business. So making sure that you actually have slots in there where people are not interrupting you to think about the best marketing or the best new offering. And don't forget breaks. Make sure that you're taking breaks. Working nonstop makes you not as creative. So you wanna make sure you do that.

And as you're putting things on your calendar too, if you're going to a lunch to meet someone, don't forget you also have travel time. So make sure you're blocking that out too so you're not rushed. Let's also talk about focus. You know, deciding what can wait is a lot easier if you have a plan. So if you put the project management into place and now you've built the calendar items, if you have the plan and something comes up to interrupt you, you have that's actually important. You have something to come back to. You know, Eisenhower said that in preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are worthless, but planning is indispensable.

And part of that planning is because you know how to get the most important things done and you know what they are. So if you don't have the plan, it's a lot harder to adapt when change does come about. And, you know, it does. So we wanna be able to mitigate change by being able to delegate or schedule to another day. So if you ever find yourself overwhelmed, you know, all of a sudden you're back in that chaotic state, we wanna go back to our list. What's on our project management list of the things that I'm supposed to do versus what's on my calendar? I've already set out my priorities.

If something quickly is interrupting you, knock it out. Don't put it on hold. If it's 5 minutes or less, take care of it. Get it off your plate and move forward. But if their interruption is bigger, mitigate it. And guess what the most common problem for everyone is? Email. When you get emails, they feel important.

They feel like you have to get to them, and you can spend a whole day going through email and never feeling like you've accomplished anything at the end of the day. So first, put some schedules on those calendar blocks on your calendar of when to go through your email.

Maybe it's 10, 2, and 5. Maybe it's 8, 2, and 5. You know, whatever works for you, but set some boundaries, and don't leave it open all day. When you're going through your email, decision making is key. So there are really only 5 things you can you can do. You can respond. You can file it because it applies to a certain thing that you need backup information on. It's junk.

Get it out of there. You can flag it because it's a big thing that you need to come back to, or you can just delete it. If you flag it, put it on your calendar of when you're gonna come back and address it. This is how you get to inbox 0. And so if you empty your inbox after every review this way, you will get to the point that you don't fear email as much too. So you're not like, I gotta open my email. The other part is now that we have this project management tool in place, we wanna make sure that all of the communications are going through that tool so they're not in your email.

That's gonna help eliminate that. You also can schedule your outgoing emails and set up automatic responses to let people know, you know, I'll check my email at 2. That could be an automatic response. And here's the other. Don't get into email conversations with people at 11 o'clock at night when you should be going to bed. Right? On those, schedule them to go out the next morning.

That that is a big feature of most email programs right now that will help you. I'm not telling you not to work when you want to work, but don't don't don't set up the expectation to your man, she I have one that, man, she saves my life. She can answer things on my behalf. She can put things on my calendar so that when I come into my inbox, I have only actionable things that I need to respond to, and it helps cut down on the overwhelm. So, that's a process you can write about how to do your, your email. So last thing here, let's look at our action items for email, and, preventing interruptions. The first is let's schedule your spiritual and health items on your your calendar as a start.

Just start there. Put when you're gonna meditate or when you're gonna take a walk outside to get some fresh air and any workouts or or exercises that you need to do to keep your body moving. Put those things on the calendar, and let's see how everything else plays out around them. Also, next one, declare bankruptcy on your email if you need to to get started working toward inbox 0. I guarantee you that if it's been in there longer than a week, it's not probably that important. So you might just archive everything and go from there. In summary, there are 3 ways to get you beyond your chaos in your small business.

1 is by systemizing with processes, and tools, and the other is to manage projects effectively to make sure that the fulfillment part of your business runs smoothly. And lastly, prevent the interruptions that prevent you from doing the things that are most important. The reason you started your business. That's why these things are important. So I wanna thank you all for joining us, and I hope that you got a lot of valuable information out of this. There is an ebook I have associated here that you can go download at beyond the chaos dotbiz / ebook, and it will walk you through a lot of this stuff in a lot more detail. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Susan. There is just an incredible amount of information. I did take some notes, but I encourage everybody to to grab that ebook. And, Susan, thank you for sharing so willingly. I'll just tell everybody, if you'd like to know more about Susan and how Beyond the Chaos approach is working with their clients, please take a listen to the podcast episode that we recorded. And, again, Susan, thank you so much.

Thanks so much, Anne. I loved it.