65: “If it wasn’t charted, you didn’t do it” — Workflows and More

In this episode, I want to tell all you Savvy Scribes about how to streamline your business using workflows. I like the quote we use in the nursing world, “If it wasn’t charted, you didn’t do it.” and relate it to workflows and systems.

What I am going to put in perspective today is writing down what you do as you go. I mean this is because eventually in your business you are going to want you out for some things.

For example, you did an assignment, your client tells you what to do, and for sure you are going to write it down somewhere. Here are some tips!

1. Put your assignments on your calendar. This is helpful because it will tell you when your deadlines are coming up. You can also use the tool that I love called Trello.
2. Create a folder on Google Drive. Organize all your work you’re getting from this client.
3. Start the research and plan. Research and planning is a huge part of writing. Plan it out and write down how long it takes..
4. Get to your first draft. Write down steps in doing that if there is a process you do.
5. Edit phase. Do you use a certain platform? Do you use Grammarly? Or using something different. Or whatever that is, again make sure you document it.
6. It is time to invoice. Now there is another way for that, which includes spreadsheets. It can help you keep track of your portfolio. So you know you have your sample right there, ready to go. You can then put your invoice, put it over into your income spreadsheet. And you can have your Excel spreadsheet to add up how much you’ve made that month.

Tools mentioned to keep your workflows seamless and organized:

• Trello
• Google Drive

And another example I want to give is blogging, which is going to help you because later on, you might want to offer blogging services to clients and not just writing services. These ideas will help prevent overwhelm when managing your workflows.

1. Organize stuff. Make a folder in Google Drive.
2. Topic Generation. Start thinking of another topic.
3. Do some research.
4. Draft again.
5. Format it. Formatting is a big deal in Blogging.
6. Make a checklist.
7. Have some images. There are a couple of places that I like pixabay.com and unsplash.com.
8. Add the blog to a platform. Schedule it to go out.
9. Add that to your content calendar, do spreadsheets. So you’ll have what articles you’ve posted.

So why do we do this? These tips to organize your workflows are going to help you when your business changes and I promise you, your business is going to change the longer you are a writer. Just always remember, if it wasn’t charted you didn’t do it! Take care and go get your write on!