Make Room for Real Emergencies

Making Room for the REAL Emergencies

Whether it’s business or your personal life, sometimes it seems it’s one emergency after the next but what if you could reduce the emergencies to a manageable number by eliminating the self-inflicted ones? The good news is you can with a little preparation and perhaps get an entire day of your life back.

In business it seems there are days where everything is an emergency, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Taking time to plan yearly and quarterly for such things as headcount, employee vacations, technology needs, marketing, training, and other employee functions can go a long way to make room for the actual emergencies. It’s important to keep a log or journal of when emergencies happen so you can prevent them in the future.

• Determining a projected headcount (current employees plus new hires) at the beginning of a year and reforecasting it mid-year can help determine how many computers, desks, offices, and supplies you will need. Stocking these things in advance along with a padding of extra supplies can make emergencies into a trip to the supply room.

• Inventorying your stock of supplies each month can help with the re-ordering process. Knowing what you have and what you need will allow you to take emergency supply runs to Staples or Office Depot locations off your schedule which may create time for something else.

• Employee vacations can leave a business short handed but with a little planning, you can be relieved of this stress. Start by planning YOURS first. After yours is on the calendar, determine how many others can be taken and when they can be taken. Planning and revisiting this on a regular basis will allow you to take the surprise of summer staffing issues.

Your personal life doesn’t always have to be like a cluster of wildfires you can’t seem to put out. Planning every day things like your route to work to weekly things like a grocery shop can be life saving. Automating things that are important such as deliveries to your home instead of multiple grocery store trips can buy back valuable time. Speaking of trips to the store, shop Christmas all-year-long.

• Getting into a regular habit of leaving early for work, events, and regular destinations can alleviate stress due to traffic as well as allow for extra stops for ‘real emergencies’.  You essentially then are ‘late for being early’ when things do happen that are out of your control.

• Automating the grocery store with home delivery subscriptions from Amazon and other services can save the time spent stopping at the store, loading the cart, scanning the item at checkout, bagging, loading the car, unloading the car, unbagging the item, and shelving / storing it. Making a list of what you buy as you buy it can be a start to automating it. It’s less time and work to unpack boxes on your porch and bring the items inside than it is to go through the grocery store-to-kitchen cabinet process.
  
  
• Keeping an eye out for Christmas gifts all year long can both spread out the Christmas shopping chore and get you some incredible deals. It’s easier to grab something for someone when 100 other people aren’t grabbing for the same item, navigating a crowded mall parking lot, or dealing with long checkout lines. The time you save here will serve you well in December where you can spend that time with family and friends.

Emergencies happen but many emergencies are self-inflicted. The good news is you can un-inflict them with a little care and planning. It’s not an overnight process but once this is mastered, you may find yourself with an entire day you never thought possible.