Who Runs the Office?
Now you're on your own with lots of work and a smoothly running office. Life couldn't be better — until your computer crashes, or you forget to send out invoices. You long for the days when you could just sit in your corner and write while the world revolved around you. Administrative tasks and technical concerns don't have to cause headaches. They just need to become part of your routine.
Setting Time Aside for Administrative Tasks
Don't forget to pay the bills! While tempting, it's not a good way to go. You also need to remember to send out invoices, order supplies, back up your computers, and water the plants.
A good way to handle this is to set aside a specific time each week, or day, for administrative tasks. The amount of time you'll need depends on your business. It's a good idea to do backups daily, requiring just a few minutes at the end of each day. The other types of administrative tasks can probably be handled in a few hours, one afternoon a week.
Handling Technical Problems
When your disk crashes, you can't just call the Help Desk and have them bring you a new one. You have to do all of the following, all by yourself:
- Panic (you can share this one with a close friend, it eases the pain)
- Recover from the initial panic (do this fast, you don't have much time)
- Devise a plan of action (get quotes on a new drive, take the computer in, etc.)
- Explain to your client why the manual didn't make it to the printer today (the dog ate it)
- Get the computer fixed
This sort of event is much more traumatic when you have to handle it alone. But stuff happens. For this particular example, backups will help you recover from the panic much faster. Clients especially like to hear "all your work is backed up so nothing is lost" following "my hard drive just crashed." It's worth it to spend some time planning for disaster. This doesn't mean you need to become paranoid — just think a bit about what could happen (fire, earthquake, snow storm, your sister's toddler) to your office and do what you can to plan for a fast recovery. Some tips:
No matter how tired you are at the end of the day, back up your work- Buy insurance (fire, theft, etc.)
- Have reliable transportation (to avoid missing meetings because your car broke down — very tacky!)
- Iif you use the Internet, spend the money for a reliable provider