As a small shop it’s all hands on deck all the time. Taking vacations (or even small breaks) is crucial for your mental health and avoiding burnout. It is definitely easier said than done however. With. asmall team everyone is doing their own thing and it may seem like only you can do certain tasks. While that may be true, there are still ways you can set up your business and prep to take that much needed and much deserved time off.

This post will focus on your marketing efforts but can easily be translated to any type of priority you have on your plate.

Make a list of your tasks!

What is on your plate that only you can do? Be honest with yourself. As leaders there is a difference between what only you can do and what you’re unwilling to let go control of. For example, only I can host the podcast, it would be weird to have someone else fill in. But, I could have someone else help out with shownotes. I’ve created a system and they have examples to look at so they could do it themselves.

If you’re struggling with this part, do a time study for a week. Track everything you do and figure get real with where you’re spending your time. Is it on the right things? I understand you’re super passionate about your organization and want to put your best foot forward. You can’t increase your impact, let along take a vacation, if you don’t let some things go!

Group your tasks

Now that you know what you have on your list, group similar activities together. When you do similar tasks you are more productive with your time. You will also be able to figure out the systems you need to ensure that work can go on while you’re out of town.

To start building out your systems look at tasks that you’re repeating over and over. Figure out ways to automate those tasks. This alone will free up some space in your day and make it easy to separate during vacation.

Remember how you figured out what tasks only you can do? This is where you also offload things other people on your team can help with. You might have found in this exercise that several of you are working on similar elements in the organization. Lumping those together will help you make your entire crew more effecient.

What you should be left with are the tasks that only you can do and what you’ll need to pay attention to in order to take that much needed vacation.

Get prepped

More than likely you aren’t deciding to take a vacation tomorrow. Get intentional with your tasks so you can have all your elements lined up and ready to take a break. Batching tasks helps with getting more done with less time. This is a good practice to have in general regardless of if you’re planning for some days off or not.

This helps you get ahead of schedule, especially with marketing. We try and record and edit 2-3 podcasts at a time. That means that my editor can work on episodes all at once, I can create the show notes all at once, and we can create the promotional materials all at once. Then I have 2-3 weeks worth of content and only have to do it 1-2 times a month instead of weekly. It also helps with building better quality with less errors.

When it comes to leaving with your mind at ease, this also means that you’ll plenty of content ready to go for while you’re gone. Just as importantly, it means you won’t be scrambling to get things done as soon as you get back.

You can use this philosophy with so many different types of tasks! When you’re not prepping for a trip, approaching your tasks in this manor means that when “emergencies” come up, you’ll have the space in your schedule to handle them without sacrificing your core job responsibilities.

Leave resources behind

At the end of the day things will come up. There is no way you can plan, prep or determine all the things that might come up for your team. If you and your team have systems in place for where things live then it will be easier for them to find the information they need while you’re gone. If each employee keeps things in their own place organized in their own way that makes things confusing.

Start building out your knowledge base so that there is a reference place to be able to find things, and understand procedures for how things get done.

To start building this out, begin with your individual tasks that only you can complete. Write down the step-by-step actions you take to accomplish that task. This isn’t a quick process, so make sure you build out time in your week to continue to build this tool. Each employee should do this for their own tasks. This will also ensure you are consistently executing the tasks necessary to reach your goals.

Let go!

At the end of the day, being able to take a vacation, and a break from work, is as much a mental exercise as it is anything. Mentally prepare yourself to cut ties. Communicate with your team what constitutes and emergency so they know when to reach out (if at all). Set your out of office so people know who to get in touch with if they need something. Even better – a few weeks prior to your time out of office, put the dates in your email signature to start to prep people.

Then it’s on you to not check email, voicemails, etc. You have to let go and unplug or you won’t fully relax. Things might not go 100% the way you want them to, but I promise you your business will not crumble to the ground. 

Conclusion

If you put these simple steps into place you’ll be in a great place to take that summer vacation, long weekend, or stay cation, to refresh your mind, body and soul!

‘Technology is everywhere, and in every facet of our business. It seems there’s hardly anything we can do that doesn’t involve some form of technology! As our businesses and organizations grow, so does our need for tech solutions. Unfortunately, it can get out of hand really quickly. You decided to get more serious about social media so you got scheduling software. Someone mentioned this new data tracking tool you had to try so you got that. A new course just launched to help you with new event planning tools so you bought that too. Then a few years later you have no idea what you’re even using, what you’re paying for, or what is even the best to support your biz!

Does any of this sound familiar!!!

Yes, technology can be a huge support, streamline and save you time. It can also be an extreme time suck and get expensive fast. This post will walk you through a tech audit and help you evaluate what tools you truly need.

What do you need to do day to day?

Now it might seem like and audit should start with what you already have. However, let’s start with a blank slate. Pretend you don’t have any tech tools and let’s create a list of what would be helpful for you in your daily activities. This would be a great activity for everyone on your team to do individually. For this purpose, your team could include board members or volunteers that are involved ain a regular capacity. Some areas you’ll want to think about include:

• how you manage projects.
• marketing activities.
• fundraising support.
• KPIs and what you need to track that.
• donor nurturing.
• donor management.
• task management.
• grant management.
• online courses/resources.
• event software.

You get the idea! Try and be specific if you can. For example, social media posting or social media analytics vs just social media.

Once you have your individual lists, complie them together and find common threads. Group your list so you can see the elements that are most common with your organization to the least. You’ve just created your priority list.

Create the list of tech you have.

Now it is time to complie the list of everything you currently have. Start with your credit card. Go through the past year and make a list of al the platforms you’re paying for. This is the easiest place to start because it will help you identify things you may have forgotten about.

Create a spreadsheet that includes:

• Product name
• URL
• What it’s used for
• Amount
• Renewal Date
• Notes

Make sure you connect with all members of your team for other memberships or resources they might also have. This could include membership dues for professional organizations or local organizations like a Chamber of Commerce. While these aren’t necessarily tech tools, they offer other resources that you may be paying for that could save you money.

Organize your tech tools by your biggest day to day priorities.

Now that you know what the biggest priorities are for you to accomplish and the areas that you and your team need the most support in, you can organize you tech tools by priority as well. You’ll start to see a good picture of what are the pieces of software you must have.

It may not be that you eliminate anything, but at least you know that everything you have you need.

At this point, I like to take a look at the bigger picture tools you’re using. This is typically your donor CRM, your financial software, a project management tool, and the software you’re using for day-to-day operations like email and your internal systems.

If its been a bit since you have signed up for these platforms they may have added additional features. Or, you may have opted out to some features due to cost. Now that you have a full list of costs for all your tools you can easily evaluate. The least amount of software you have in your organization the easier it is to get things done. 

You can also use this information to negotiate with companies to get new features at a better rate. For example, maybe you’re paying for SMS texting on one platform, but now your email marketing software offers that at a higher package. You know what you’re paying for the other platform so see if you can save money by lumping them altogether.

Cut what you don’t need

Now is the fun part! Time to save some $$$! Time to transfer the information from the tools you don’t need and shut it down. Tech changes so fast and reviewing regularly will help you make the most of your tools and make sure you aren’t spending more than you need.

Now that you know what you’re paying and know that it aligns with your teams needs, you might find you need to add new tools. Always start with what you already have to see if they have those capabilities. If you need to add software then use our tips for finding the right CRM. It can be applied for researching any platform you’re looking for.

Conclusion

Tech is a great way to save time and money but can get out of hand quickly. By auditing your tech needs at least once a year you can ensure your tech is helping to support your organization, not take away from it. For more tips on how to use tech to support your business listen to episode 175 of the Digital Marketing Therapy podcast.