I am banging on about automating process again and with renewed, new year vigour. Why? Because getting as many routine things moved over into repeatable process is the key to getting more done and doing more than the next person. And please tell me if you aren't under pressure to get more done and do more than the next person – I would love to hear from you!

Not only do you need to do more than the next person but you need to do more than you have done in the past. 'Do more' can mean produce more stuff, learn new skills, find better ways – let's just accept for the moment that 'do more than' means to improve something about what you do.

Rarely have I seen a situation where doing less than the other guy is a good strategy. Jimmy Spithill Tweet this

Improvement takes concentration, planning, trial and error – lots of thinking and trying time. So, being able to repeat a process rather having to remember what you did last time is a productive way to free up a bunch of time. It also serves to kill off panic and clear room for clearer thinking.

I am banging on about automating process again and with renewed, new year vigour Tweet this

Here's one way of automating communications in a way you may not have thought of. Use the email marketing functionality of your website to develop standard emails that can be repeated or improved upon. Using the email marketing functionality allows you to schedule communications and to interrogate the results – something that you can't achieved well with email. Not all email marketing has to be about marketing your product or sending out your newsletter and it is here that you can think about email marketing as a business communication tool rather than a website communication tool.

For example, on our return to work this year after the xmas break we sent an email out to our mailing list letting everyone know that we were back. We don't usually do this because we expect everyone who needed to know to have checked with us prior to the break. However, this year I thought I would try something different. Responses poured in – some were automatic email responses telling us that whoever we had contact was still on leave – information we didn't have, so that was useful – and the rest were a mixture of friendly catchups and new work. Rather than start the year easing gradually into a full production schedule we ended up straight back into work with more work to do than we had expected.

Not only do you need to do more than the next person but you need to do more than you have done in the past. Tweet this

Most importantly, we have a template in place to use again. This means that we can schedule the email to go out for the new year as soon as we decide which day we are reopening the office next year. Job done, 11 and a half months in advance of when it needs to be done – plenty of time to refine the message or change the design if the time becomes available to do so.

Doing more with what you have requires a bit of effort up front and won't result in any less work to do but you will get through more and as Jimmy Spithill observes, doing less than the other guy isn't a good strategy.

That's what I think. What do you think?