There must be a better way!

Be Brave - Question the Mundane

Have you ever been brave enough to ask the question 'Why do we do it this way?'

The Way Things Once Were

Many years ago, I worked for a small company and at the start of each day I would access reports and print them ready for the managers review. Every day this took me almost half an hour of boring repetative mouse clicks (yawn). Until, one day, whilst feeling particularly fed up with the monotony of the task I vocalised my dismay to my manager.

They actually had no idea that this task had been taking so long.

Together we approached our IT team to look for a solution and long story short, with the help of bespoke software development we then automated the process completely.

My only involvement from there on in was to take the reports off the printer each morning and pass them to my manager with her coffee. It was fantastic.

The only truly frustrating thing was that I had put up with it for so long, why did I not speak up sooner?

It had cost the company a considerable amount of money to pay me to do a completely unskilled, mind-numbing job every day when I could have put that time to better, more cost-effective use.

If only I'd known then, what I know now.

Stop NOW!

So now I ask you, have you ever taken time out of your day to actually stop and think about how often you complete the same or similar tasks and wonder whether it really does need to be done that way? I’m talking about at home as well as at work.

Think about your day from start to finish. Think about your routine... Now think about how much time is spent on repeat activities, especially those that you don’t particularly enjoy, like housework or if you’re anything like me, the time spent repeatedly telling the children that indeed both shoes are needed in order to get out of the door and to school on time!

Now for the scary part… Multiply that time up. Calculate how much time each repetitive activity is quite literally stealing from you each day.

The results are probably upsetting, I know mine were!

So why do we so often choose not to do anything to change it?

Guilty?

We are all guilty of it. We moan about having to do the mundane things in life but for some strange reason we continue to accept that it ‘just has to be done’.

Mostly we whine a little, then reluctantly get on and do it.

Or worse, for some jobs we even stop moaning.

We get so used to having to do these monotonous things and just accept the staus quo, that we no longer stop to think about what other amazing things we could be doing with our time.

Consider this, if a job takes just three minutes each time it’s done, and it’s done just 5 times each day, it may not seem like much. Now do the sums…. Each day, it’s just 15 minutes,
each week it’s just 1 hour 15 minutes,
over four weeks that’s five hours
and for a year it’s a whopping 65 hours!

Wow 65 hours! What fantastic opportunities have you been missing? What wonderous things could you do with that time instead?
If it's time wasted on jobs at home, just imagine, more time with the family, or travelling or enjoying some of those things on your bucket list that you just never seem to have time for.

If it's time wasted by an employee doing manual tasks, imagine what other income generating tasks they could have been doing.

Plodding On Regardless

Can you really afford to continue putting your head down and plough on?

Or is now the time to start thinking “what can be done to change this?”

I’m by no means suggesting ditching the tasks, for as much as we hate them, most are needed in order to keep things running smoothly. But the question is, does it have to be done the way you do it? Is there a quicker way or better still, is there a way that it could be done without you getting involved?

Could software and technology offer a solution? The answer is most probably 'yes', and it need not be complex or costly.

Scary Nightmares from Years Gone By!

Consider just a few of your household repetitive chores like laundry, cleaning, cooking etc.

Can you imagine what these activities were like before someone stood up and said, “There must be a better way”.

Someone did the sums. Someone was brave enough to question “Why don’t we try to do things differently?”
As a result of these ingenious thinkers questioning the norm, so much time has been saved for so many people.

When they introduced technology and software into the mix, hey presto wonderous things happened!

These critical thinkers may not have had the solution, they weren’t all inventors, but they started the revolution of thought and as a result, technology was born that we now days take for granted.

Think back to a time when any of your home tec broke and you’ll realise just how reliant you have become on it. I’ll bet you'd hate to imagine the nightmare it would be to have return to the old way of doing things.

Now is Your Time - Own It and Make It Count

Revisit your sums from earlier, your calculations of the time spent on repetitive activities. Apply these calculations to other activities at home and in the workplace. What does that time equate to?

For every business there is an age old saying that time is money, and this is so true.

With this in mind, how much are repetitive tasks costing your company? Can you really afford to continue not to look for a more effective solution?

Fear not, at S B Systems, we can help you. We've already helped hundreds of companies like yours. They have streamlined their admin processes by implementing affordable bespoke software that soon paid for itself with time saved. We can help with tailor made desktop solutions, web apps or even bespoke business mobile apps, just tell us what you need to achieve.

Streamlining means saving time, saving money and in turn frees up your valuable resources to work on more income generating areas of the business. It's a business decision that makes perfect sense, so why put it off?

Save Time, Make Money

Have you ever worked out how much your time is actually worth? It's interesting if you start to see a value for every minute or hour spent on a task. You soon see pound signs ticking by. This can give you that incentive to look for time saving solutions and helps you better evaluate the cost of not taking action to implement change.

Today, for every task you do that you have done the same or similar before, stop and question, why is there not a quicker way?
Look at your activities, why do you do it, how often do you do it, and what is the benefit?

Then the most important questions to consider, “how much is this costing and is there a better way?”

Would it actually save you or your company money if this job could be completed quicker or without effort?

If the answer is yes, then it’s a no brainer and you really should be calling us already to see how we can help.

Get The Ball Rolling Now and lets chat about the solution you need.