In learning the 4HWW process I'm applying as many of the principles that I can apart from outsourcing at the moment to my current work situation.
I've already batched my personal email. I am attempting to cut down on my frivolous web surfing. I've begun to take note of what I do, daily, weekly and monthly. To note I use pen/paper/notepad. I also have running a utility called TimeSnapper. I'm running this to see how much time I spend in applications etc. I'm wanting to batch more.
For as long as I can remember I've said, PCs are there to help. Automate, automate, automate. I'm not a programmer! Nevertheless I'm attempting to automate as much as possible. Yes, I know I could outsource it all. Yet, I'm working on the principle of learning what each task I do entails and how. If anybody knows of a good way i.e. diagraming quickly all the steps to complete a task, please let me know.
We have a help desk call logging system here at work. I'm sure it could be be automated or streamlined even more. I just can't picture the whole process and how to note it all down. After all, I want to go to my boss... I propose I suggest. I've asked my developers to add things to aid my reporting. What would take me maybe a few hours when I did it the first time, now take me 15 minutes if that. In addition, I've documented it so somebody else could do it. I think this is crucial. What if I'm not here etc? It is all so good preparation for a good on-line FAQ.
I'm creating templates for email subjects/topics that I seem to often send out. I'm looking through old calls to see if there are some common commonalities to them. For example do people ask for the same advice. Can many problems be resolved in a 1,2,3 step process. Can I produce an internal FAQ?
Asking For Help
Some of my clients are very successful 1-2 man bands who travel all over the world. In fact they seem to spend more time flying in the air than time on the ground. They haven't outsourced much if at all. When I've been on the phone to them. I've been asking who do they use for X, Y, Z. Any company recommendations etc. They are doing what I want to do i.e. travel and work...although less of the work.. So it makes sense to ask them. One such was for a fax to email provider. Obviously you don't want fax orders, unless you get somebody else to monitor and act upon them. Yet some communication may come about due to and with a fax. Banks etc. Therefore it helps to have a fax to email provider. Maybe a mail fulfilment house will also offer such a service?
My current company doesn't want to take up such a solution Instead I implemented blat to monitor our fax folder, which I was monitoring maybe 1-3 times a day. Now blat monitors the folder and emails an email account which I just monitor once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Now if we could all just agree on a fax template and I could then remove the junk faxes too.
Semi Outsource - Niche Finding.
I thought about outsourcing finding details of magazines in areas of my interests to narrow down my niche area. There is a website. Writers Market . Yet I understand this to be US centric. I thought about my first task for outsourcing to be create an account and get marketing rates and back issues sent to me. I think I'll still do this. I'll be having a fulfilment house there as well as in Europe. I was talking to somebody and mentioning this, I need something for the UK. They said there 'press department' has such a database. Let me know what you want and I'll get them to send on the details. So I produced my 1st Outsourcing email...happy days and for free. There is a 3 week waiting list for outsourcing on many that Tim recommended in his book. Although I'm liking YouManInIndia since they do more than business outscourcing. I'm thinking birthday flowers to Japan?
Happy Travels
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