When was the last time you sat down and evaluated where your time goes each day? How many minutes—or hours—do you spend on those tedious tasks that need to be done, but take you away from the work that fulfills you?
In this day and age, technology has afforded us the opportunity to free up our schedules by automating a lot of those small, menial tasks that don’t need your full attention. Think about it: appointment reminders, receipt tracking, social media posting, and so on — surely, you can come up with a list of to-do’s that your life would be far easier if they weren’t on your plate.
Here are six (and more) everyday tasks that you can—and should—automate to save your time and sanity.
Scheduling appointments
It can take up a lot of valuable time to go back-and-forth with a client to find a date and time that works for both parties. In my opinion, this is the single most annoying task that you can automate — you really don’t need to go through a chain of 15 emails just to nail down an appointment slot.
Look at apps like Calendly, TimeTrade, or Acuity Scheduling that will connect directly to a Google calendar, letting your clients choose the best time for them within your open slots.
Invoicing clients
If you’re creating a new invoice for each client every time there is an outstanding balance, you need to change your process. This is such a standard procedure that you should have a system in place that will automate this for you.
Having a template document can simplify invoices, but there are plenty of client management apps that will manage the whole process for you — from setting due dates to sending reminder emails. Automated and recurring invoices not only saves you time, but your client as well. A few options on the market are QuickBooks, Honeybook, 17Hats, Planning Pod, and Dubsado.
Proposals and contracts
Similar to invoicing, there are plenty of digital tools that can help you simplify the proposal and contracting process. How much time does it take to send a contract in PDF form, wait for a client to print, sign, and scan it back, then countersign and scan a copy back? Simply put, it takes too much time.
Luckily, there are sites like DocuSign, SignNow, and HelloSign that automate this whole process and keep it online. In fact, a great CRM (customer relationship management) platform will provide templates and automation features for proposals, contract, and invoices — so check out the programs mentioned in the invoicing section, like Honeybook, 17Hats, and Dubsado.
Client intake
Once a client books, the first step is usually to get to know them better. This can be done in several ways and doesn’t need to mean you’re setting aside hours for face-to-face meetings or phone calls. Those can come later, but to get your initial information, an online questionnaire is a quick and easy way to gather everything you need. It also ensures you can get the ball rolling right away, even if you don’t have time for an appointment in the next week or two.
Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, Typeform, and Wufoo are the most popular choices for online form-building. Once you create an intake questionnaire, it’s as simple as sending the link out to all of your new clients. Some CRM platforms will also provide an easy solution for client intake (including those mentioned above!).
File sharing
Gone are the days of emailing document and spreadsheet attachments; not only is this process more tedious, but it also carries a risk of viruses. A more efficient way to send documentation to clients and colleagues is through an online file-sharing platform. Share links to specific documents or create shared folders for real-time collaboration.
Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box lead the market in content management, with added features to make sharing and collaborating easier and more seamless.
Social media management
I hear from many creatives and wedding pros that social media is the biggest time-sucker of them all. Not only do you need to create content, but you also need to engage and be an active listener to make the most out of the strategy. Instead of scrambling to post something—anything—each and every day, set aside a couple of hours once a month to use a scheduling app and let it take care of posting for the rest of the month. You will still need to login for authentic engagement, but you’ll be able to take the stress of posting regularly off your plate.
There are so many options for social media scheduling, and some will also include monitoring and engagement features as well. Take a look at Tailwind, HootSuite, Sprout Social, Later, Planoly, and Buffer.
Virtually anything else
If you have other needs that aren’t covered above, I’d like to direct you to two ‘catch-all’ sites: IFTTT and Zapier. These tools allow you to create ‘recipes’ that you can use in your business to automate various applications and connect the systems and software that you use. Want to automatically post any photo you add to a certain folder in Dropbox? Done. Need to be notified about new emails in Slack? Easy.
Quit recreating the wheel every time you need to do something. As an industry, it’s time that we work smarter, not harder. Not every app mentioned above will work for you, but keep seeking out solutions for your needs until you find the very best fit. When you do, you’ll find more time and headspace to pursue new projects, bring on new clients, and spend more time on personal development.
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Jennifer Taylor is the owner and founder of Taylor’d Event Group, a leading event planning company that serves local and destination clients in Washington State and Maui, HI. She is also the principal of Jen Taylor Consulting, a consulting firm that works with creative businesses of all sizes to implement streamlined workflows and organized systems to find more time and space for business growth and personal development.