I must admit, keeping organized in my business has been one of the biggest obstacles I needed to overcome. I’ve got staff to manage, patients to keep happy, bills to pay and inventory to keep track of. 

As a creative at heart, organization and processes weren’t my strong suit. However, since owning Coachella Valley Optometry for 3 years, I’ve picked up a few tricks to organizing our systems efficiently and keeping organized.

1. Keep Your Surroundings Neat & Organized While it’s important for your clinic to look neat and organized for your patients, it’s just as important to ensure your offices and workspaces are neat and organized too! Keep your desk tidy and put everything back where it belongs at the end of each day.

2. Use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool There are many different tools to choose from, but make sure they sync up with your booking system and email marketing provider. Use your CRM to make your patients’ experience as personalized as possible!

3. Plan Your Marketing Activity Don’t leave your social media posts or flyer production to the last minute, because it will always end up looking rushed and not well thought out (what a waste!) Think strategically about your marketing strategy at least a quarter in advance to ensure your promotions and content complement each other perfectly.

4. Organize Your Passwords No one can remember all the passwords you need when running a business (especially if they’re complicated and secure). Try using a password manager like 1Password to keep all your passwords safe and in one place.

5. Plan for Quarterly Taxes They say there are two things that are certain in life, death and taxes, which as a small business owner couldn’t be more true. Staying on top of your taxes will stop that stressed-out feeling you get at the end of each quarter!

6. Don’t Get Lost in Your Inbox Allow 30 minutes at the start of the day and 30 minutes at the end of the day to read and respond to emails. This will allow you to focus and respond to the emails you need to and delegate the others as required rather than being interrupted every 5 minutes.

7. Empower Your Team In most small businesses, the owner is the one making all of the decisions which often means there are bottlenecks in the approval process slowing the entire business down. Empowering your team to make decisions within their area of expertise will allow them to move forward quickly.