A few weeks ago we broke down How To Target 8 Wasted Areas In Your Business In 20 Minutes Or Less using the DOWNTIME acronym to evaluate what areas you can strategically trim down in your business. (If you missed it or need a refresher, check out that blog post here!)
This week I want to take things up a notch and identify how to optimize those areas that you have by categorizing them using value. We have already broken down where we can look to find the waste behind the scenes but we need to determine if those areas are actually benefiting our operations & adding value to the business or if they can actually need to be cut out.
To quickly recap what “waste” is: it’s a daily duty (or thing in your life/business) that is taking up space. That space can be categorized by time, energy, or money.
So, what does that mean for you & how can you target what “waste” is adding value to your business & what can be optimized or thrown out?
Let’s break things down into 3 buckets:
1️⃣ Bucket 1: If the ‘thing’ taking up space is something that is of benefit & is necessary to you, your business or your workflow, it is value-added and not considered “waste”.
This is something like prepping for a discovery call. It’s valuable to your business & benefits how the outcome turns out.
If something is considered of value, the action is to optimize how you approach it.
An example of this would be prepping for the discovery call a day in advance so that you can prepare how the time can be best spent.
2️⃣ Bucket 2: If the ‘thing’ taking up space is something that you wouldn’t expect, wouldn’t want, or halts your workflow, it is considered “non value-added waste”.
This is something like waiting an excessive amount of time for something you need, constantly reworking errors that pop up without fixing the issue, or having to spend time searching for something.
If something is considered non value-added waste, the action is to eliminate it completely.
An example of this would be fixing an automation connection so that it is not showing an error each time it is triggered.
3️⃣ Bucket 3: If the ‘thing’ taking up space is something that causes excessive waiting or money, but is necessary for your business, it is considered “non value-added but necessary”.
This is something like waiting for a certification test results or legal documentation that is required for your business operations.
If something is considered non value-added but necessary, the action is to perform as efficiently as possible. We can’t eliminate this ‘thing’ because it’s needed for our business, but what we can do is reduce the amount of steps taken to get to the end result.
An example of this would be taking the certification test some time in advance so that you aren’t stressing over getting results back asap or have time to complete it before you “actually need it”.
Once you’re able to categorize your time (or the areas you identified in the previous blog using the DOWNTIME acronym here) into these 3 buckets, you’ll be able to take action on what needs to be optimized, eliminated, or done as efficiently as possible.
If you’re finding yourself stuck & can’t determine how something is serving you or your business, it’s time you finally do something about it. Comment below or send me a DM on Instagram here and let’s dive deeper to clean up these areas together.
Brooke Scott, MBA
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