Everything Takes Longer Than It Should

Slowness isn't random. It has specific causes:

No documented process. Everyone does it differently. There's no "right way." People reinvent the wheel every time. Inconsistency creates slowness—you can't optimize what isn't standardized.

Too many steps. Processes evolved organically. Each person added steps. Nobody questioned if all steps were necessary. Now simple tasks have 15 steps when 5 would work.

Missing tools or information. People spend 10 minutes looking for what they need before starting the actual work. Files aren't organized. Tools aren't accessible. Information lives in people's heads.

Handoffs and dependencies. Work passes through multiple people. Each handoff adds delay. Dependencies mean one person's slowness blocks everyone downstream. Bottlenecks compound.

Interruptions and context-switching. People start a task, get interrupted, switch to something else, come back later. Every context switch costs time. Fragmented attention kills productivity.

Lack of authority. Every decision requires approval. People wait for answers. Work stalls. Centralized decision-making creates systemic slowness at scale.

First, diagnose where time is actually going:

Track 5 common tasks for a week. Order processing, customer onboarding, service delivery—whatever you do repeatedly. Time them. Every instance. Build a dataset of actual performance, not assumptions.

Calculate expected vs. actual time. What should each task take? What does it actually take? The gap is your opportunity. If tasks average 2x expected time, you have 50% waste to eliminate.

Identify the slowest steps. Within each task, which steps consume the most time? Is it data entry? Is it waiting for approvals? Is it finding information? The slowest steps are your highest-priority fixes.

Map interruptions and dependencies. When does work stop or get delayed? Who's waiting on whom? Where do handoffs happen? Dependencies and interruptions are silent killers of speed.

Ask your team. They know exactly where time gets wasted. "What takes way longer than it should?" "Where do you get stuck waiting?" "What's unnecessarily complicated?" Listen. They'll tell you.

Here's how to make operations faster:

1. Document the optimal process. For your top 5-10 repeated tasks, write down the fastest way to do them correctly. Make this the standard. Train everyone to this standard. Eliminate variation.

2. Remove unnecessary steps. Challenge every step. "Is this required?" "What happens if we skip it?" You'll find 20-30% of steps add no value. Kill them. Simplify aggressively.

3. Organize information and tools. Everything someone needs should be within arm's reach or one click away. Create templates, checklists, and quick-access files. Every search minute adds up.

4. Eliminate handoffs where possible. Can one person do the whole thing? Can you batch handoffs? Fewer handoffs = fewer delays = faster completion. Consolidate ownership.

5. Create decision frameworks. Give people authority to decide within boundaries. "You can approve refunds under $100." "You can expedite orders without asking." Distributed authority increases speed.

6. Batch similar work. Don't do one email, then one order, then one email. Do all emails, then all orders. Batching reduces context-switching and increases flow state. Same work, half the time.

Sometimes slowness is a technology problem:

Automate repetitive data entry. If someone types the same information twice, that's automation opportunity. Forms, integrations, copy-paste macros—anything that eliminates redundant typing saves massive time.

Use templates ruthlessly. Email templates, document templates, message templates. If you say it more than twice, template it. Customization takes 30 seconds. Writing from scratch takes 10 minutes.

Implement keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys. Every mouse click costs 2-3 seconds. Keyboard shortcuts cut that to 0.5 seconds. Over thousands of actions daily, this matters enormously.

Integrate systems to reduce manual transfers. If data moves manually between systems, integrate them. APIs, Zapier, native integrations—make systems talk to each other. Eliminate human data transfer.

Upgrade painfully slow tools. If your POS system is laggy, every transaction suffers. If your website is slow, customers bounce. Sometimes you need to spend money to save time. Calculate the ROI—it's usually obvious.

Here's how to systematically speed up operations:

Week 1: Audit and identify. Track your top 5 tasks. Time them. Calculate waste. Interview team about friction points. Build your priority list of slowness causes.

Week 2: Document and standardize. Write down the optimal process for your #1 slowest task. Remove unnecessary steps. Create templates and tools. Train team to new standard.

Week 3: Implement and measure. Roll out the improved process. Track new timings. Compare to baseline. Aim for 30-50% improvement. Troubleshoot issues. Refine as needed.

Week 4: Expand to next task. Take what you learned and apply it to your #2 slowest task. Build momentum. Systematize speed improvement as an ongoing practice, not a one-time project.

Monthly: Review and optimize. Every month, pick one task to speed up. Over a year, you'll transform 12 processes. Compounding improvements create exponentially faster operations.

Need help speeding up operations? Book a Business Flow package to audit, document, and optimize your core processes.