The Ultimate Guide to Business Workflow Optimization:  Stop Spiraling and Start Scaling

Our ultimate guide to business workflow optimization gives teams and leaders the strategies needed to end operational time-bleeds and allow their talents to shine! 

Building a successful business can lead you to sacrifice time you didn’t realize you had, and still not be enough to keep up.  Why?  Your time is not being applied to the parts of your business that create growth. 

How to fix workflow problems in your business:

At AstroCat, we embrace the art of “getting it all done” for organizations – and trust, it is an art.  Goal-strategy is a big part of the classical learning and improvement principles we teach through our business development approach. We bring these classical problem-solving skills to the service industries that help creatives and skilled providers monetize their crafts.

In our ultimate business workflow optimization guide, we cover how to assess your current workflow health and solutions for creating positive change.

Why your current workflow approach is broken

When you are feeling the proverbial “candle burning at both ends”, or you have become Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory when at work, you know a workflow problem is brewing.  In my own experience as an entrepreneur, I was working over 60 hours a week regularly for years and knew something had to change to make this better.

How does this workflow challenge happen, though?  Sometimes, the truth is that it is the sheer volume of work you are up against, and more people-power is needed.  But in many other cases, there is no strategy to the way open tasks are approached. 

Going straight down your to-do list without any further consideration of an initiative’s priority and impact to the big picture will lead to scrambling, eventually.  Also, your most important tasks may not receive attention at all. 

Starting with awareness, leaders and teams should first dive in and analyze where they are losing time, or spending valuable working hours on tasks that are not creating sales, or generating the best product. 

Through this process and employing the strategies to follow, the result is reducing overall admin time and creating a stronger central mission for your company.

The psychology of workflow and a system to relieve workflow anxiety

Erratic and unproductive workflow for a professional can be fueled by a number of factors, including anxiety.  To have an unending and urgent cycle of work always pending will cause stress as well, even if that is not your normal disposition. 

A vicious cycle between stress and a never-ending, dense workload can draw you into a panicked state, and this only feeds the further disorganization.  The unravelling of the two – stress and workload – can be quite easy as a system, though.

My therapist and life coach told me to start writing down all the things that are on my mind and that I have to do in a week.  Simple as it is as a suggestion, it really worked for me.  

This evolved into a “weekly brain dump” where I would sit on my journaling couch (don’t judge), and pour out everything I needed to do – short and long term – into one big list. 

This system of purging my mind relieved my immediate work stress, because I was able to make a plan for how I would accomplish everything…or if that expectation was even within reason.

As a simple system to implement, the weekly brain dump routine helps busy leaders and teams with their business workflow optimization by organizing the initiatives they have in progress.  It’s a way to audit “what do we do next” for maximum effectiveness, but also, to take back your peace of mind.

A deep-work framework for leaders

So far, processes like determining the key actions that generate growth and revenue and the weekly brain-dump routine will help with organizing what needs to be done. 

However, building in time to do deep work for managers and leaders, especially, can be challenging.  This time is needed to actually execute the tasks on their to-do lists, and yet, the subordinates they oversee require their attention too – sometimes, as an exclusive focus.

This brings us to the how of workflow systems and creating a deep-work framework that gives you space to actually get the things done on your list.  Often times, at least some of the tasks will require focus and concentration to complete, and you have to schedule that time to make it happen consistently.

In organizing your schedule for the week, consider the number of “clear” days and little-to-no-meetings days you need to get your deep-work done.  Block these times off exactly like a meeting, or scheduled event, and protect your attention during that time.

Having a couple clear days per week will increase your productivity exponentially.  The key is remaining disciplined and guarding this deep-work appointment with yourself.  Also, proactivity in scheduling this time in advance, or as the opportunity strikes.

You will find yourself moving out of “reaction mode” as large items are moved off your plate, as these tasks can create stress that stays with you even outside of the workplace.

Team communication workflow systems

We have to talk about teams if we are talking about workflow systems!  Optimizing for success means aligning your efforts to a singular purpose across your entire organization.  Having team communication workflow systems in place that nip redundancies and define clear ownership of specific tasks are a big part of the results you will garner as a leader.

If at this point you are thinking, “but I’m in a partnership, so I’m unsure if we are big enough to worry about team communication and the effects to our bottom line…” and the hesitation is understandable!  And yet, you and a partner would make up a team, and the smaller a team is, the more refined their workflow plan and areas of ownership should be.

For leaders, the way to achieve solid organizational flow with deliverables from your team is not based in the exact tasks or assignments you set out – it’s in the way you TEACH your team members what they each need to produce. 

Without effective instruction and organization passed down from the top, junior team members (and every level beneath the guidance) cannot create aligned deliverables. 

When many sub-par pieces of the whole are uniting somewhere in the middle, the results are… well…”messy operation” is the polite way of saying “a total operations cluster-fuck”.

Moral of this story – leaders must learn to be effective teachers.  Because without this guidance from those driving strategy, the net output from a lack of business workflow optimization will hurt your customer retention quickly.

Delegation and automation strategies to reduce admin time

To reduce admin time without sacrificing the customer-facing product, or efficacy of operations, is the dream for business owners.  Our world is working towards that very future with the AI boom. 

Long-before even computers were part of standard business operations, optimizing a team’s time usage to increase the company’s output and bottom line was the goal with new developments.

Flash-forward to ‘now’, and that same journey will continue for a business owner for as long as they are operating.  Technology is always changing, which forces businesses to keep up with their market’s newest developments, as well as the best ways to apply new tech to their operations.

Beyond technology developments – and the ability to automate the most redundant tasks in our day-to-day – there is an overarching need for flexibility within workflow systems to be truly effective and reduce admin time.

Without this flexibility, it will become impossible to keep up with the amount of incoming work you will generate once you have a customer base.  As an example…

There are many tools at your disposal to optimize your admin workflow.  Some involve technology, some involve scaling your team, and some are just strategic approaches that consider ways you can contour your workflow systems based on the seasonal factors at hand. 

With any path, the main takeaway is to pursue solutions to keep evolving.  When the volume of work in your business becomes the employer of you, or your team, you have a problem.

Workflow discipline:  managing social media distractions

We’ve presented several tools and strategies for managing workflow, but all are moot if your attention is compromised. 

What is a big attention-stealer we have to battle?  Outside of life, family, friends – even what we will be having for dinner – is the champion of all time-vampires…SOCIAL MEDIA DISTRACTIONS.

This is no great-revelation, or ground-breaking news.  It is also easy to say “just don’t get on social media while at work” if your work is not based in social media.  For business owners and leaders, a significant portion of work now happens on social media platforms, forcing your attention to those channels.

This is a perfect example of where a natural workflow system that fits into your routine organically will be far more effective than hard-and-set rules that feel oppressive, not freeing.

What is the danger on the socials when doing work on these channels?  Doom-scrolling.  Getting side-tracked.  Getting ‘sucked-in’. 

To avoid this, there are some simple environmental factors you can consider, like closing out all social media apps from your devices before shutting down (so they do not show first when you restart).

But on a larger level, having key objectives to accomplish while on social platforms for work is a huge help that saves time for professionals.  This plan of action for the day will ensure your work is directed and has a larger organizational purpose. 

Imagine saying at the end of the day, “I got a lot done for work on insta today!”

Workflow Coaching and Implementation

Improving your efficiency and optimizing operations workflow for yourself, or your team, can feel like a challenge that is much easier said than done. 

When you feel there is no way to untangle the web of responsibilities in your day, or within your business, you are long-overdue for extra guidance.  Business workflow coaching can dramatically improve your experience and ease of implementation with new ideas to try.

One of the most challenging aspects of workflow improvement is having the time to create a plan.  As owners and leaders, we struggle to step away for long enough to gain the birds-eye insight to brainstorm new approaches, but with a business coach, you have an informed peer contributing and helping you save that mental energy.

There is also accountability built in to the coaching relationship that is extremely valuable to your bottom line.   Coaches keep you on track to achieve results as one of their functions, and working with someone you trust, or look up to will create an enriching experience.    

The added support and reinforcement a business coach contributes can be the difference between making a positive change, or staying stuck in a workflow spiral.  The boost of confidence from knowing another professional is guiding the way allows you to try solutions that are bolder, and brainstorm new ideas.

If you are seeking solutions for your personal workflow, or business workflow optimization systems, we would love to help and learn more about your company.  Book a discovery call with us, or discuss our coaching packages by email. 

Your next steps:  starting a workflow optimization plan

Whether you seek the help of a business coach, or prefer to create workflow solutions internally, just remember that there is hope.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and you can get out of the spiral, no matter how dismal it looks now.

When you are a leader facing an insurmountable scope of work, or a crazy work / life balance, this simple truth can be so easy to forget.

Bringing in outside help for business workflow optimization should be considered if you are unable to make space for creating solutions, or if you simply need new, fresh ideas.  Ultimately, the faster you resolve your bottlenecks, the faster you can keep charting your path forward to grow…and regain sanity in your day-to-day.

Learn about our coaching services, and contact us to discuss how we can help with your unique needs.