Back in the days before home computers I had a simple, easy and fabulous system for paying my bills.
After the mailman delivered them, I would put the bills in a special pink folder on my desk. Twice a month when I got paid I took them out, paid the ones that were due, placed them in an envelope with a stamp and stacked them on the front hall table to mail.

It was easy and it worked splendidly, but it sure took a lot of time and effort.

Today, I hardly get involved in bill paying at all. This morning, for example, I got my monthly text message from AT&T telling me that my bill was ready. All I had to do was respond to the text message and my bill was paid, just like that!

And that’s just one example of the way I use automation in my life. From my monthly vitamin delivery, to reminders popping up on my calendar, to text messages alerting me to the delivery of packages, automation makes my life easier. I just love it that, even when I’m busy, parts of my life are going on without me. It’s almost like being in two places at once!

I bet you’ve already got a lot of automation going on in your personal life. What’s interesting, though, is that when I talk to small business owners about automating, they almost never see the same opportunities for their businesses, despite all the benefits they experience in their personal lives.

It’s kind of a weird disconnect, actually, but here are three of the most common reasons I hear for the lack of small business automation:

1. Time. It’s true-automation takes time up front. Mostly it’s time needed to understand and sketch out the various pieces of the process you want to automate.But here’s the deal: You’re going to spend the time either way. You can spend two hours on a manual task twice a week, or you can spend a bit more time ONCE to automate the process and never (or hardly ever) have to do much with it again.
   
   It’s an investment that pays back quickly.
2. Control. I know – we don’t want to give it up and, as small business owners, we think our hands need to be in everything. But guess what? Automation gives you more control. It also gives you consistency.For example, if there’s a standard letter that you often send you can write it perfectly once and use it over and over. However, when you do it on the fly each time it not only takes longer, but you’re going to have a higher chance of mistakes, mis-messages and typos.Automation also gives you the ability to track what’s happening, which is something you can’t get on the fly. With this new information you can get smarter and smarter over time about what’s working and tweak your process until it’s running flawlessly.
3. Touch. Many people believe that automation removes the human touch. And yes, you can absolutely cross a line here. But there are also amazing opportunities to send personalized, professional automated messages to your customers in a way that improves the warmth of your business.Recently, for example, I worked with a client to automate a series of email messages that he sends to customers who register for an event. Here’s what happened the first time we automated the sequence: We got more nice e-mail replies than usual, and people liked the automated e-mails more than the ad hoc ones (most people didn’t even realize they were automated)!

Here’s what I’m saying: Automation lets you get out of the weeds and get a handle on your business. It helps you to create a better customer experience. It also saves time for your company, which means saving money for you.

Gotta go-just got a text alert for another bill that I won’t need to spend time paying!

The last few weeks have been really busy for me at RocketGirl headquarters.

My clients have returned from summer ready to launch into new projects, my 5th grader Emily is getting settled into a new school, and I’m getting into the swing of a new routine.

With so many balls in the air it didn’t take me long to get caught in the spinning world of just doing the next thing in front of me. You probably know what I mean-handling the person, piece of paper, or idea that’s right there and following the trail until the next person, paper or idea shows up. Repeat over and over until you have no idea what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.

This is a very dangerous behavior for a business owner to indulge in.

First of all, it means that you don’t really have your hands on the steering wheel. And secondly, if you’re in reaction mode, I can guarantee that you’re not moving in any kind of strategic direction.

Thankfully I’ve been doing this long enough to know that it was time to take a dose of my own medicine. It was time to make a shift. You can’t grow your business, or even tread water, if you can’t keep your focus.

When you find yourself in this situation (and who doesn’t from time to time?), remember these three suggestions for getting your hands back on the wheel:

1. Clear the space. When I’m resetting my work mode, the first thing I do is take every single thing off my desk, from Kleenex boxes and knick-knacks, to each scrap of paper. I then clean the surface of my desk (this is extra credit).
   
   Now it’s time to put back your “stuff” (but no papers yet, please). Remember that every single thing on your desk is taking up some of your attention, whether you realize it or not, so be really picky about what lives within your immediate view. 
   
   Your desk top is a place to be creative, solve problems and make money. Make sure there’s enough visual space to do that.
2. Organize the work. Despite the conventional wisdom that says to handle each paper just once, I begin by sorting my huge pile into chunks according to blow-up-ability (i.e., the likelihood that something terrible will happen if I don’t take care of it). 
   
   I do my sorting on a table, not my desk, and here are some of my categories: Red Hot (if I don’t take care of it in the next couple of days I’m in big trouble); Want To Keep But No Action Required (there’s no blow-up-ability possible); Client Work that is sorted by project, stored in folders, and sorted again according to the status of the project. GREAT!
3. Create room. The final step, and perhaps the hardest, is to dedicate blocks of time for work and schedule them into your calendar. No email, no phone calls, just you and the work. Tell the people around you that, “Unless it’s on fire, I don’t need to know for the next X hours.” 
   
   If you’ve tried all of this and still find it difficult to stay focused, choose one project to work on. Take only what you need and either move to another room in your office, bring it home, or find a coffee shop with Wi-Fi.When I do this it feels like I can get an entire day’s work done in two hours. 
   
   I can hear the chorus from here, “I don’t have time to clean my office! I can’t leave my phone or email for hours at a time! I’m running a company here!”

I’m here to tell you that, if you can’t leave your phone or take the time to get yourself organized, you’re not running your company. Your company is running you.

I guarantee that if you stop reacting to everything that’s coming at you and take some time to organize your office, your projects, your thoughts and your time, you’ll get more done more easily than you ever thought possible.

Ahh…that feels better already.