Repetitive tasks are a huge time-waster that small business can't afford. Decrease time spent on a task and you increase productivity. Use the tools you already own - download one or two - to speed up jobs you do repeatedly.
- Template it. If you use MS Word (or another word processor) to write letters, make fax cover sheets, create printer labels, write proposals, build reports, print your own notecards and more, make Word templates for each and put them on the server so everyone can use them (or copy them to everyone's machine). Company-wide documents should be built on templates and they should be available to everyone who needs them. Make folders for template types and they'll show up as tabs when you click "File-New" in each MS Office application. Create online letter templates here. Open Office users have extras available as well.
On a Windows XP machine, templates often live here: C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates ("Owner" may vary).
- Signature it. Create email signatures to pre-write the repetitive things you send. Make a signature for confidentiality, one with your mobile phone, one with all your other contacts (e.g. Skype, IM, Twitter), and one of my favorites: the prices to renew domains when they expire (we manage hundreds of domains and send reminders almost daily). Click "Insert-Signature" (in Outlook) and choose the one you need at the time. Take the time to create one for plain text and another for HTML. Most email programs have a signature option. Use it creatively and save time.
- Logo it. Excel, which I believe is the real jewel in the MS Office crown, is a hot button on my cool keyboard. Get some templates at MS Office online and customize them with your logo so "File-New" gives everyone that company-approved expense report, mileage log or petty cash request. Why build from scratch when good templates that calculate are available for free?
- Web-it. If you have a small business Web site, get your Web firm to put it into Adobe's Contribute. With Contribute, anyone who can use, say, Word, can edit the Web site (let's put a password on it, ok?). You can update text, add new photos and get your event schedule out of the prior century. Best thing: you can create a new Web page with "File-New from Template" and have a brand-new page that matches the rest of your site. The learning curve is short: 20 minutes of phone support gets a decent computer user up and running. If your Web firm balks, either get a new Web firm or get a new site design.
- Functionalize it. If you paid for logo design, you should have an already-sized print-worthy logo available for your documents. If not, get one from your graphics person. Tell them you want a "print-resolution logo ready to go into an office document's header," and then put the logo onto your templates. A quality logo that prints clearly can be used by everyone who needs it for official company business. Then learn how to put it into the header.
- Font it. Do you have a corporate font? If not, choose one and tell everyone, "ONE font per document." Then stop sending original documents and PDF everything you email so that your logo and fonts remain yours. There are free, low-priced and expensive PDF-making programs available. Get one.
Then be sure that the corporate font is the default font on everyone's computer. (Edit the fonts, CTRL+D in Word, and look for the "default" button in the bottom left corner of the font dialog box.)
- Listify it. If you use lists, stop using MS Word and open Excel. Keep your customer contact information in a spreadsheet (or export it routinely from your customer relationship management program). Use those lists to send holiday cards, reminders, notices, sales announcements and everything else. The pain is only learning why you want first name and last name (like every other piece of information) in separate columns. Have one official company list and let's password-protect that as well. Mail merge can be your friend.
- Own it. Change the options in all your MS Office applications so that the person creating the document is identified. Tracking revisions is useless if you don't know who edited what. Although you want to remove identifying information when sharing a document outside your company, it's crucial to know that information before it's shared. (This is another reason we use PDFs.) Use "Tools-Options" and edit the User Information.
Bottom line: don't do it twice if you can template it once. What are your ingenious template tools - and what tasks do you use them for?
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Comments
3
Subscribe to commentsyou're kiddingJun 12th 2007 11:37AM
how about 'script it'?
you're sending hundreds of renewal emails BY HAND every day?
that is just fucking insane. Pay an outsourcer or a highschooler $200 to write a script that will take care of that for you.
not to mention your 'fire your web designer' advice is also short-sighted. Yes, you've discovered with Contribute the silver bullet that will defeat those evil money grubbing web designers! Realistically, I'd hope your web designer would at least MOMENTARILY balk, because if they've done a good job: #1 you should already be able to self-update your website, and #2 allowing you to use contribute without WRITING A SITE TO SPECIFICALLY WORK WITH CONTRIBUTE would be a good way to get a totally screwed up website.
you\\\'re kiddingJun 12th 2007 11:40AM
btw, i had to unsubscribe. you guys are good at news, but terrible at commentary, and it ends up with me leaving mean messages -- which aren't good for anyone.
also, looks like your comment/display functionality is using 'addslashes'.. that's bad.
Sue PolinskyJun 12th 2007 11:44AM
I think you misunderstood. We send 2-4 renewal emails a week (we manage hundreds of domains, many registered for multiple years). It's a task that is well-suited for an Outlook signature, given that we provide personal service to many small businesses and nonprofits.
As for Web sites that work with Contribute, it's easy to retrofit a decently-designed site into Contribute but it goes with the lecture that you have to be able to work with photos to update them and some things on a site are off limits to "civilians." Like I wrote, "personal service" means that we counsel our clients -- like all good Web firms do -- and ensure that they have the right tools for their needs.
Thanks for your comments.