If you’re anything like I used to be, you just dive in. If the thing you start with happens to be the thing you planned to do, that’s a bonus.
There is a better way, especially when you’ve become a team.
Here are some things to think about:
If you have opening hours for customers or clients, you need to be available to them on the dot of opening time, and right up until the last minute of closing time. That means at least someone has to be there before you open, and at least someone has to be there after you close. Of course you can choose when you open and close for clients. Opening hours do not have to be the same as working hours. So of course, you can pay your team for all the hours they work.
Being ready means knowing that everything you might need to serve customers is working and up and running. That means testing before you open. Create a checklist for doing this so anyone can do it. Include instructions for what to do if tests fail. Then get into the habit of doing it every day. Take turns if possible, so everyone knows. Being ready might also mean a group recap of the previous day’s highlights, or a progress report on key projects. These recaps don’t need to be long, and you can have a different theme each day, so they don’t get boring, but they are an opportunity for everyone to put things into context.
Being available right up to the last minute means you don’t start shutting things down till after you’re closed. But if it’s quiet people can be getting things ready for the following morning. Again, it helps to have a routine, encapsulated in a checklist. This might include things like: reflect on the day’s work; make a note of any issue you want to raise in the morning; write down the top 3 actions you want to get done tomorrow; tidy desk, wash mug (or make it easy for someone else to wash it). For a trade, it might also involve: tidy and hoover the van; clean tools and put them away etc. The principle is that you do whatever you can to start the next day clean.
And of course, if you have a routine for opening up, you’ll have a routine for closing too. Again put it in a checklist so that anyone can do it, and take turns so everyone gets to practice.
Having a process for opening and closing for business might seem like overkill, but you’ll be surprised how much routinising stuff like this helps to free up headspace for the most important work of serving clients – especially when the unexpected happens and the things you take for granted fail.
Discipline makes Daring possible.