Systems Setup Phase I: How to Identify Repetitive Tasks in Your Business

4 min readJul 30, 2018

Going through a systems setup is not an easy task.

There are a lot of moving pieces, and once you’re done with Part I: Identifying Repetitive Tasks in Your Business, the real work is just beginning.

But before you get scared off by the fact that this will take time and hard work, let me ask you a few questions…

How would your business change if you didn’t have to worry about certain tasks or projects getting done?
How would your life change if you didn’t have to stress over whether or not something was taken care of?
How would your everyday change if you knew you had systems in place that were helping you with followup, customer service, and managing your team — not sometimes, but all of the time?

If you take the time to do a systems setup in your business, you’re going to feel every one of these things once your systems are in place.

What is a systems setup?

A systems setup is a process I developed in order to help any entrepreneur — no matter what stage of your business you’re in — identify repetitive tasks and setup systems in order to help you save time, work most efficiently, and have peace of mind that your business is working for you.

How does a systems setup work?

A systems setup starts with intention and dedication. If you’re not ready to dedicate yourself to setting up systems in your business — which could take months to fully implement — then don’t waste your time.

If you are ready to make a drastic change in the way you run your business — and therefore, how you leverage your time — then keep reading…

Phase I: Identifying Repetitive Tasks in Your Business

There are several phases in a systems setup, and today, we’re going to cover the first: Identifying Repetitive Tasks in Your Business. This phase consists of 3 Steps.

Step 1: Take Inventory

Taking inventory is the FIRST step to creating systems in your business.

Time required: 1 week

What you’ll need: a piece of paper and pen (or something online, like Google Spreadsheets)

What to do:

Start by writing out the day of the week at the top of your paper — the first day, and each day thereafter.

Each day, for 1 week straight, let that piece of paper and pen follow you around as you’re going through your workday.

Each time you work on a certain task or project, simply write it down on your paper under the specific day you worked on it.

No task or project is too big or too small to record. This is simply an exercise to help you understand what it is you’re spending your time on, PLUS which tasks and projects are repetitive ones.

Examples of things you’ll write down might be:

check email
manage Facebook group
help a community member with their password
write sales page copy
design opt in page
tweak home page of website
create PDF download for giveaway
client call

At the end of 1 week take a look back at the tasks and projects you’re spending your time on.

How do you feel about these tasks and projects?

Are there certain tasks and projects you’re spending your time on that you don’t want to be working on? …that aren’t moving your business forward? …that could wait until you have more time to focus on them?

It’s important to take 10–15 minutes here and just absorb how you’re spending your time and how you feel about how you’re spending your time.

Now, it’s time to categorize it.

Step 2: Categorize

Keeping everything intact from before, start with a fresh piece of paper (or online note pad) and create 4 columns: DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY, 1-TIME.

Beneath each of these categories record the tasks and projects you wrote down during your work week in the appropriate column.

If you used a Google Spreadsheet to start your tracking, it will helpful for getting organized quickly and easily.

Which tasks or projects did you find yourself working on daily? Weekly? Monthly?

And there are probably a fair number of tasks or projects you’re working on that are 1-time tasks or projects, like launching a website, creating an online course, or maybe a presentation or a coaching call.

Once you’ve categorized your tasks and projects, it’s time to cut through the noise and sort these in order of importance.

Step 3: Sort

Sorting your tasks and projects once they’ve been categorized will help you identify which are the highest priority, and your highest priority will be the ones you create systems around first.

When determining priority you want to look at a couple of things:

Which tasks or projects are integral to the current success of your business?
Which tasks or projects are actively helping you get one step closer to accomplishing your goals?
Which tasks or projects are eating up a majority of your time?
Which tasks or projects do you feel are distractions and prevent you from having a productive work day?

Any task or project that meets one of the above criteria should rise to the top.

But you have to be brutally honest with yourself: only prioritize tasks and projects that fit into one of the scenarios above.

Phase II: Writing out the steps

Now that you have a prioritized list of the tasks and projects you’ll create systems around first, it’s time to write out the steps you take for each task or project — one at a time. That’s coming up next!

Originally published at www.eofire.com on July 30, 2018.