“OK, I get the importance of systems!  But how do I actually streamline a process?  Where do I even start?”

I hear this a lot.

Let me clear things up and break them down for you.

Whenever I’m optimizing my own systems or those of my clients, I use this exact formula.

10 Step System Optimization Checklist

1. Identify the process
2. Define the ideal outcome
3. Record the steps that currently happen
4. List the problems with the current problems
5. Brainstorm improvements
6. Schedule actions to implement improvements
7. Record the new sequence of steps
8. Test the system
9. Tweak if necessary
10. Maintain the system

Okay, okay.

I can already hear you.

“But how do I actually use these steps in relation to my business?”

Optimize Case Study

Let’s say that you publish weekly blog posts in order to provide value to your audience, establish yourself as an expert, and build trust with them.

Well, at least that was your original intention.  But now you’re realizing that publishing regularly is really challenging.

You tend to end up writing your posts the morning of the day they are supposed to go out.

One of two things happens.

It goes very smoothly—the post writes itself and you feel at ease.  Or what usually happens —you get distracted because you can’t figure out what to write about or there is a client emergency.  As a result, you no longer have time to write and feel guilty about publishing anything.

You also know that uploading blog posts is not the best use of your time, but your assistant cannot help you when you do it at the last minute.

To put an end to this incredibly frustrating cycle of blog-related problems, you decide to finally optimize your system by following the 10 steps I mentioned earlier.

Here’s what you’d do.

1.  Identify the process

Blog writing

2.   Define the ideal outcome

Blog post published every Wednesday

3.   Record the steps that currently happen

Simply outline what tends to happen.  Put on your observer hat.

• I sit down to write my post on Wednesday morning
• I think of a topic to write about
• I write the post and publish it OR
• I get side tracked and don’t publish it that day

4.   List the problems

Be honest about what’s getting in the way of things happening smoothly.

• I can’t write articles in advance—something always comes up
• I hate having an editorial calendar
• Sometimes I’m out of ideas
• I have to fix the uploaded posts after my VA, so what’s the point of delegating it?
• I do write blog posts, but I often forget to share them on social media

5.   Brainstorm the improvements that can be made

Brainstorm with someone who can give you unbiased feedback— a team member, accountability partner, coach, or fellow business owner.

• Schedule post writing and treat it like a client appointment
• Collect all my post ideas in a single place
• Poll my audience for what topics they are interested in
• Record instructions as a screencast so VA can successfully upload posts the way you want them to look
• Look into ways of automating the process of sharing my blog posts

6.   Schedule actions to implement those improvements

Whatever you schedule must be actionable.

Avoid getting stuck or feeling overwhelmed by breaking down the improvements into easy-to-implement to-do items that will only take 5-15 minutes.

Do yourself a favor.

Keep those to-do items in a single place, where you can see your progress—on your calendar, in your task management software, or just a Google Drive spreadsheet.

Here is a template of such spreadsheet that I created for my Systematic Success program participants.  Feel free to copy it into your Google Drive and use it.

Here’s how the above list of improvements can be translated into a to-do list.

• Decide on the day and time you prefer to write each week
• Block my calendar every week for the window of time needed to write a post and treat it like a client meeting
• Create a 3-question survey to find out what topics my audience is interested in
• Share the survey with my list
• Decide where I’m going to keep all my blog post ideas
• Transfer the existing ideas there (survey results and frequent questions from my audience)
• Record a screencast narrating how I upload posts
• Send it to my VA and have her create a checklist
• Tell my VA when I’ll e-mail her the next post and give her the deadline for uploading it and creating social media updates
• Review the post and record feedback to my VA
• Create an IFTTT account to automate sharing my post on social media
• Create New Blog Post => Tweet and New Blog Post => FB update “recipes”

7.   Record the updated list of actions

This is the routine you are going to test.

1. Thursday morning: refer to the list of blog post ideas, pick a topic, and write the first draft of the post
2. Friday afternoon: finalize the post and send it to the VA to be uploaded by Tuesday morning
3. Tuesday afternoon: review the uploaded post and record feedback (short screencast) for my VA
4. Wednesday morning: scheduled post goes live and gets automatically shared on social media

8.   Test the system

Now, follow the steps you created and see how it feels.

Maybe you’ll find that Thursday doesn’t work because your energy goes down as the week progresses or maybe your VA needs more lead time.

9. Tweak the system if necessary

You’ll have to tweak the system depending on the results of your test run.

If you feel too tired to write on Thursday and your VA needs more time, here is how your adjusted system could look:

1. Monday morning (1 1/2 weeks before the post is scheduled to run): refer to the list of blog post ideas, pick a topic, and write the first draft of the post
2. Tuesday afternoon (of the same week): finalize the post and send it to the VA to be uploaded by next Tuesday morning
3. Tuesday afternoon (the week the post is scheduled to run): review the uploaded post and record feedback (short screencast) for my VA
4. Wednesday morning: scheduled post goes live and gets automatically shared on social media

10.  System maintenance

Tweak the system as you’re working it and notice where things are slipping through the cracks.

You should also make note of the feedback you receive from the parties involved—in our case your VA and audience.   As you receive feedback, evaluate it and, if it’s valid, make adjustments.

Lastly, every 6 months book a meeting on your calendar with yourself to do a general review of your systems.  You may want to do it more often when the systems are new, but do what feels right.  This will be a more strategic review where you examine the overall performance of the systems and determine if your business outgrew some aspects of it.

Wrapping it All Up

Remember, your systems are unique to your personality and business model—you need to find a way of doing things that feels comfortable and easy to follow.

The most important piece of advice I can give you is: Don’t go fast; go steady.

Set aside 15 minutes a day, or even a week, and work on each step.  Break your systems-related work into small, manageable steps that you can take one at a time to reach your bigger goal.

I promise you, small consistent steps will take you much farther than trying to set aside several hours and giving up when you feel overwhelmed.

Your Challenge

Using this template, create a to-do list for one of systems you want to streamline.