Outrageous - but truthful - claim ahead: automation is what will save your life and biz.
Mostly because it saves your sanity… and when you keep your sanity in check, everything else falls right into place. Know what I mean?
And I don’t mean filling your house with robots, outsourcing everything, and putting life on autopilot.
Nope. I mean that kinda sounds like the future someday (and maybe present for some) but for now? Let’s just start small.
Think about it this way… (if you’re not totally believing me that automation is life saving): how much do you mentally track in your brain on a daily or weekly basis?
Stuff like… the next time you need to go to the store and what specific items you need to purchase. You know “all the things” you replenish regularly… TP, supplements, laundry detergent, dog food….
Or when your next set of bills are due...
The form you need to fill out for the class trip at your kid’s school...
Deadlines for projects or other work stuff...
Peeps you need to follow up with...
It’s never ending. And I haven’t even scratched the surface yet… our brains hold a lot of stuff that we have to do in a given day, week or month.
Maybe you’ve never thought about this but there’s a ton of that shiz you can automate in your life and in your biz.
Automation means → freedom.
I think sometimes people hear “automation” and think… great something else I have to take time to setup and spend money on.
And, yes, it does take a little time to set up systems.
But it doesn’t always cost money to use services that provide automation.
But, even if it did…. What's your hourly rate, my friend? What’s your time worth?
You’re either gonna spend your time or your money. You can always make more money.
But you can’t manufacture time.
So if automation saves you time… it saves you money. Because it gives you time freedom to go do other things - like grow your biz.
Or just relax.
I’m gonna share with you 3 things in your life and biz you can automate starting right away. Let’s get to it.
Automate your notifications
Real talk: as entrepreneurs, we’re drowning in notifications all day long.
Texts. Voxers. Emails. Tags. Mentions. Phone calls.
So.Much.Communication.
Honestly it was driving me insane… so I searched for a way to automate it because that’s my style.
I didn’t want to spend all this extra time going from this app to that app all over my phone and computer to try to figure out who wants what from me and when.
I found this app, called Pushover, that consolidates ALL your notifications into one place. Search for it on the App store for your iPhone or Android.. Or just google “Pushover App” and you’ll find it.
Which means you have ONE app to check for ALL your notifications.
It works on your computer or your phone, too, which is amazing AF!
No more wasted time and phones blowing up with notifications… automate those notifications.
Level this up by building a couple blocks of time into your schedule where you check notifications.
Give yourself 20-30 minutes to check the app, breeze through and respond to what needs a response.
Then move on with your day. Done.
Automate your errands and small tasks.
And I don’t mean you have to go hire someone full time to do this.
Nope. There’s an app for this (like everything else in our lives, right?). Two actually.
Handy and TaskRabbit are two apps you can use to find people local to you who are looking to help out with small tasks and errands.
The apps are free to use, but you obviously do have to pay the person you hire for their time.
Now before you go and think - why would I pay someone to run my mail over to the post office, just as an example?
Remember what I said earlier? About your time and your money? Yeah that’s why.
You know there are many days where you say “the day just got away from me and I didn’t get anything done.”
BAM. Not anymore. Automate the small stuff.
If it costs you a few dollars to have someone else run a mindless errand for you so you can spend that hour of your life growing your biz or doing some self-care… It's 100% worth it.
Brainstorm right now a few things you could hand off to someone else - things like a grocery run, dropping off drycleaning, finally hanging up all the pics you want on your gallery wall in your living room… small stuff like this is perfect to automate and task out.
Level this up by hiring someone to setup your systems for you. For example: hire someone for 30 minutes to setup a few Amazon Subscribe N Save orders that cover stuff like your toilet paper, paper towels, toothpaste etc..
(well I don’t automate my toothpaste on Amazon because I’m automating that in my doTERRA monthly automated order, lol), …
So here’s what happens. I set it, forget it about it AND I don’t t have to spend any of my time setting up the system.
You can have this automated life too, my friend.
Automate cleaning your home.
Okay the obvious answer here is to hire a cleaning service.
Which you can totally do. It can be great to have someone come once a week, or once a month - whatever you decide - to just take care of everything on one day.
But… you live in your house. Every day. And if you also work from home, that means the amount of time you’re not in your house is pretty small.
So what about the times in between major cleaning?
Automate as much of it as you can. Here are two ways you can do it:
Get a robot.
Haha! I literally mean what I said - get something like a Roomba to go around your floors. You can control these things through Apps, so you can decide where they go and how often they do it.
It’s an upfront investment but it pays off in time saved. Think of all the times you won’t have to be vacuuming. Amazing, right?
The second way to automate your home cleaning is to break down small upkeep tasks throughout the week and set reminders for yourself with time limits.
Okay so this isn’t TRUE automation because you still have to do the work yourself but it’s a step in the right direction because it ensures you get it done and do it efficiently.
Here’s what I mean: pick a one hour block of time each day. Then assign ONE house upkeep chore to that block. Ie laundry or organize your 10 year old’s clothes - you know the one who likes to dress herself but then stuffs everything back into her drawers, never folding anything?)
Focus on knocking out that task in the assigned block of time. You can break up the block as needed.
I do this all the time.
I head home from a workout in the morning, allow myself about 45 min before I start my work day to take a quick shower and do a few household chores before I sit down at my desk.
Later in the day if I see a 15-30 min break in my schedule I may pop back into the kitchen or something and tackle another small home task.
It’s called efficiency, my friend. Keeping an eye on your day. Not letting it control you.
And bonus, I may see an overload of laundry from time to time but I almost never have a full sink of dirty dishes.
Okay my friends, I hope this was helpful! If you loved these tips and want to get them in the form of a handy download you can reference later, then head here to get your copy!
XO,
Hayley