I love checklists

One of the first moves I made when I decided to work towards making my business more effortless (although I didn’t call it that back then) was to create a little checklist on an index card for the Crystal Clear Lunch & Learn series I was running.

I listed the 4 things I needed to bring:

Signs I had great signs with movable direction arrows and a white board area for writing in the day’s topic and speaker

Cookies  You gotta feed people something at a Lunch & Learn.

Handouts and other resources pertaining to the topic

Supplies This was a prepacked (ie, it wasn’t emptied) bag with a table cloth, cups, tea bags, sugar etc.) and my business cards and other marketing material, because the series was a marketing initiative.

On the back, I had the phone number for the local café where I picked up a premade carafe of coffee.   They made the coffee and supplied the little milk and creamers.  I think buying the coffee is worth it just so I don’t have to worry about dairy products.  I had the phone number of the venue.   I started to call to check in the morning of.  A couple of times there was a hitch. This meant I had a few hours to straighten it out.

That little index card meant more than not just forgetting something on the day, which would not be catastrophic, merely annoying.  Much more than that, it meant I didn’t have to think about it until a few hours before.

I took the time to think about what I wanted to get out of the series and what was needed to make that happen.  By recording it and having it available, I didn’t have to think about it again.

The heavens didn’t open, angels didn’t sing, but I sure recognized a tool that saved me time, cleared brain space and optimized the situation.

I made a checklist a few years ago during an HR workshop. I won a coffee card for it, but that’s not the point here, although it probably put the whole thing in a more favourable light.  I spent a few more hours adding in pages about our mission, our policies and privacy.  Since that time I have used it every time we have a new person start here.

It works.  Once again, I don’t have to think about it until it’s time.  The rest of the team hear about our mission, our policies and privacy, again (we have an open office).  Everyone knows what we are doing here, how they fit in and how everyone else fits in; and they know everyone else does, too.

The New Employee Induction Tool is for sale on our resources page. A free Employee Handbook Template that is very comprehensive and a free sample Employee Evaluation are available for download, too.

This is just the beginning.  We will have many more resources for you – paid and unpaid.  Here’s to making Your Business Effortless!

What checklists do you use?  What checklists would you like to use?  What do you do over and over again that should have a checklist?

Do you want to craft Your Effortless Business?

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