Hello and welcome to another episode of always up to date. Uh, my name is Denise sadnesses yai and we are co-owners of always bookkeeping. Uh, today on our video we’re going to talking about making a schedule and why you should make a schedule. Um, as you know, if you’ve watched our videos before, uh, we always do a quote as statistic and a little story. And so our quote today is from Benjamin Franklin, who you should know is one of the founding fathers of the United States. Um, so he said, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. Uh, the statistic is from industry Canada and it says that 15% of businesses fail in your one, uh, 30% failed by your two and 50% failed by your five. Um, so you know, you, you start the day fresh on Monday morning with your to do list and you’re ready to conquer the small business world and, um, you get into work and all these things start to happen.

And by Saturday, uh, you sit down to reflect on the weekend, you look at your to do lists and you realize that you really didn’t get anything done that was on your two lists. And if you did, it was the things that were the least important that he did to get done. Those things that were most important, um, didn’t get done. Maybe, uh, things that just seemed like they were really important at the time, took up all your week to, to get done and you just didn’t get what needed to be done. Um, so I have a few questions that you want to ask about, um, making a schedule. So first one is what is the difference between a schedule and a to do miss? Right. So, um, it seems like pretty straightforward, but, um, a schedule of course is basically a calendar with your time that you’re working and what you’re gonna do in those Koreans of time with Edmonton Bookkeeping.

Um, to do list is writing down everything you need to do and trying to get it done. Um, I don’t know about you, but I’ve done to do lists before where when I got something done, I wrote it on my to do lists and scratched it off. So I look like I do stuff, but really I just, my to do list never gets done. It’s always ongoing. And um, yeah, it just, I dunno, I don’t know anybody that can use it to do list and actually get it done. Yeah. Um, how often should use schedule? So you should schedule every day. Um, usually you schedule, um, we’re talking about work, um, specifically. So you want to schedule whatever time you work in the morning. If you started a tech, you start at five. If you start at 10, whatever time you, you want to, um, block off time for every activity that you need to do during the day.

[inaudible] and, um, I think it’s very important that you think about this stuff that could add that you’re doing and routinely so that you’d be able to meet. You don’t have to make a schedule for it every day for the rest of your life. Like, um,

mm.

Well, what I mean by that is that you have a different, um, item when your tasks for everyday, most of this stuff we’re going to be repetitive. So I would look at, um, time periods on how it repeats. For example, is that if, um, if you do something at the third of the month every month or if you do a something different every second Wednesday, then I would think about this stuff when I’m making my schedule. So maybe then I can repeat the same schedule for the next month or I can repeat the same uh, schedule and the next two weeks. And so stuff like that, uh, that would make it easier for you to schedule?

That’s right. Yeah. Some people schedule daily, some people weekly with Edmonton Bookkeeping. Um, we do it monthly. We have a four week block and

we all know what’s going on in those four weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what should your schedule look like?

Yeah, so it’s so it varies so much and um, you know, you can take that to do list and put it onto your schedule. Just schedule those things in. Um, we like to walk in two hour increments. Just if one hour doesn’t seem enough to do things, two hour scenes a little bit better. Um, you might have to, depending on what business you do. Um, I know a lot of construction people, um, they, you might want to book going to your suppliers in like early morning, early morning so that your, you’re the first one there. We’ve talked to, um, construction workers that they like to be at the, uh, home Depot or where it is that you’re going to get your supplies seven o’clock in the morning, cause they know that any later than that too, they’re going to be farther down the queue to get their stuff. So then they spend the whole morning waiting for their supplies for the site that they need to work on that day. So not only are they wasting their time, but they’re wasting their employee’s time because they don’t have the supplies they need to do their job. Um, so again, your schedule is going to look, um, however you need it to look for your business. So it’s a little bit different here and there. Um, yeah. Yeah.

And I think it’s, um, it helps as well to kind of list off the input, uh, are the major activities that you do for your business. For example, um, your admin time, your payroll time, your, um, your supplier Stein, like Denise said. Um, and then start to fill them up in your, I suppose, to just jumping from one to another every time you have the chance to do so because, um, chances are you’re going to forget something, right?

Yeah. Lots of people to forget to put in things like, um, you know, blocking out a couple of hours to do quotes. You know, you go and meet with the client and then you never have time to do the quote and, and so then by the time you get around to the quote, they’d probably go onto somebody else to get it. Who’s going to get it done for them. You know, if you’re, um, you have construction and you never have time to go see your sites, you never know what your employees are doing. Are they doing it right? And if you’re somebody like, uh, an electrician that all of the wiring goes and then once the drywall is up, if you’ve never gone to that site because you just didn’t have time or you didn’t put it in your schedule, you’re never gonna know and it’s gonna make a big mess afterwards.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, going back to the to do list, if it’s, if it’s in your schedule and you have scheduled the time to do it, it’s more likely that you’re going to get it done. Yeah. Yeah. Um, watch you, what should you schedule in the morning?

Yeah. So, um, in the morning it’s probably better to do those, um, sort of the concentrated work, but that needs to be done. Um, so working on your own, doing the, um, like getting a project ready, getting, um, I don’t know, like we do our Edmonton Bookkeeping in the morning, so we were concentrating on it. If we have questions that we need to ask somebody else on the team, we, we kind of batch those and we wait until the afternoon. If we need to work on a file with somebody else, we do that stuff in the afternoon. So, um, again, like we talked about as well, if maybe you need to go to your supplier first thing in the morning, morning. If you’re a construction, that’s probably a good time to go to your job site and see what your employees are doing. Um, I would recommend to, um, if you have more than one job site sort of, um, alternating them so that your employees don’t know that you’re coming. Okay. We know he’s coming Monday morning every morning, Monday morning at nine o’clock, he’s ms show up. So we better be here. And um, you know, we kind of have a little better grasp on what’s actually going on.

I always think of it as schedule everything that, um, that are gonna take a lot of brain effort in the morning because that’s when you’re at your best. Yeah, I guess we were kinda, you know, we got weekday in the afternoon or we get slower towards the end. That’s right. Yeah. Cause we get exhausted. Right. So that’s great. Um, what should you schedule in the afternoon then?

Yeah, so in the afternoon, um, for us that’s when we do like our client meetings, um, do, um, collaborative work that we need to do with our team members. Again, just like you always said in the morning, you’re more apt to be able to just concentrate more and, and do that work. And in the morning too, you can get ready for that afternoon meeting if that’s what you have or, um, yeah, just things that are not quite as hard on your brain I guess. You know, you still need to think about it, you still need to do it, but um, it’s just a little bit easier to do in the afternoon. Little less taxing. Yeah, exactly. Um, do you meet the schedule? Lunch break? Yeah, I think you do. Um, it’s so easy to get working on your task and, um, just to work through your lunch break and especially small business owners or, um, no one for that with Edmonton Bookkeeping.

Well, I’ll just see it later or I’ll, um, grab a bite along the way or whatever. Yeah, that’s right. And, um, I think it’s so important for us to, to be able to just take that break and go have something to eat. Just maybe go for a little walk or whatever, just to kind of let your brain rest a little bit. And um, you know, then you’re not coming home at the end of the night and you’re angry and grouchy and tired and you don’t know why. And it’s because you haven’t eaten all day. You know, your body needs that fuel to keep you going every day. Need to look the same. Yeah, we kind of touched on that a little bit, but not every day is the same. Um, you might need to schedule client meetings one day and then marketing Sunday. Um, you need to take some time out for your Edmonton Bookkeeping.

Maybe, um, maybe you have, um, some customers that you need to see that, um, maybe you have a networking, um, meaning that you go to again, maybe, um, you know, this week is gonna look no different than next week. Maybe there’s something that you only need to do every two weeks. Yeah. So it really depends on, I guess, how routine your work is. Yeah. That’s great. Yup. Um, do I need to schedule staff meetings? Yeah, absolutely. That’s something else that, um, small business owners often do is they don’t, they don’t schedule a staff meeting as a, I’ll just, especially when you don’t have very many staff and we just think, I’ll just talk to them when I, you know, when I’m talking to them, I’ll remember, tell them this, but often you don’t remember to tell them. And I think a lot of times, um, employees, employers get into a little bit of a problem when there is attending communication.

Um, I think that staff meeting is really important for communication. It doesn’t have to be hours long. Um, sometimes we’ve had staff meetings that are only half an hour. Um, it’s just that big thing is communication. And I think your employees work better when they’re communicated to and they’re a part of the team. They feel like they’re part of the team and they know what’s going on. Um, and again, staff meetings, depending on how big of a firm you have, how are how big of a company you have, um, you could do them monthly or biweekly. Um, we do ours weekly. Just again, just so that the staff all know where we’re at. The, um, there isn’t any, um, questioning what’s going on. We were very open with them and just, um, let them know this is, this is how it is with Edmonton Bookkeeping.

Because at the end of the day, the relationship yeah. That your employees is, it’s going to affect how they’re going to work for, uh, for the company and how they’re going to make money for you. So I think it’s very important and some of us leave, um, or if we had been employed before we leave and we always say we’re gonna create new cultures out. We can create new cultures and, um, build our company’s culture if we don’t meet with our employee. That’s right. Yeah. And I think it’s a time for employees to, to maybe voice concerns or give ideas or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. Um, what if my schedule doesn’t work for me with Edmonton Bookkeeping?

Yeah. So it’s okay to stray from your schedule. Um, occasionally, sometimes emergencies come up, something comes up that you just can’t, um, put into a schedule somewhere else. You have to deal with it right away. That’s okay. Okay. Usually if that’s happening all the time, your schedule isn’t right and you need to redo it. Um, which is okay. It may take you three or four times to get your schedule right. I know we’ve had to kind of tweak ours a little bit. We try, it doesn’t work this way. These were running into these issues or whatever. And so we just have to tweak it and try to, um, make it work a little better. But that’s totally okay. That’s with everything that we do, we have to kind of do that, try it out and see if it works. If it doesn’t work, just try something different. Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah. And I think that’s another advantage of having an actual schedule if something doesn’t work and then you can plan ahead because you already know what you supposed to do in the future because you put it on your schedule. Um, and there’s some stuff that you could, um, adjust here and there to fit whatever you, you weren’t able to do. Um, again, that’s the beauty of having a schedule. It makes it organized for you to, um, do your, to do list your checklist or anything that needs to get done for your business. That’s right. Um, I think that’s all the questions we have for this video. I, I hope you guys liked it. Um, if so, please like and subscribe to our page. Um, if you have any comments, please feel free to comment down below and we’ll see you guys next time on our next episode. Thanks so much. Bye.