It is back to school time across the United States and for many that means back to juggling multiple schedules and multiple life priorities. Even if you do not have school age children, it just seems like the ‘end of summer’ signifies a transition period from feeling the freedoms of summer to getting back into familiar, and sometimes hectic, daily routines.

I’m not unlike the rest of you, having recently moved my daughter into her dorm room where she’s starting her freshman year of college. Even though we planned for this months ago, the hustle and bustle were still there as we confirmed travel arrangements and move in dates, made sure she had everything she needed, packed her up, dropped the dog off and headed across country.

When school is back in session, we often hear ‘back to school, back to basics’ which refers to the fact that we have not been adhering to our regular rhythm of structure and learning. I love this thought process as a business owner. It’s similar to spring cleaning where there’s some triggering event that tells your mind ‘Hey this is a good time to refresh!’ Especially given we’re in the last few months of the year.

As a business owner, this is also a great time for you to refresh your thinking and remind yourself of where you said you wanted to be at the end of this year (or even this quarter). Here’s my ABCs for small business owners to get ‘back to basics’.

Align Planning

Alignment to your strategy and vision is a critical element for achieving your business goals. It shows up, or reveals it’s lack, in everything you do as a business owner. If your weekly planning does not align to your overall strategy, you’ll quickly find progress eluding you. If you develop services that were not part of your vision, you may find yourself with a bunch of unneeded, unsellable ideas. Keep your plans and actions aligned to your vision to get the results you are aiming to achieve.

Boost Productivity

Give a boost to your productivity and create capacity by implementing time saving methods like scheduling blocks of time to get specific things accomplished, delegating or outsourcing tasks that don’t directly make you money and are not visionary, and dispositioning distractions so they don’t consume your mind but can be dealt with later.

Create Systems

Create systems that connect your documented processes and procedures to make your people more efficient at their work. Using technology to integrate and automate these connections will allow your company to do more with the least amount of human intervention.

These are the foundations for reaching that next revenue goal and for not wearing yourself out in the process.

Join Plan-Optimize-Profit (planoptimizeprofit.com) to get the A to Z with proven strategies for setting up your operations for optimal productivity and increased profit potential.