How to scale your business sustainably without burning out

We all want to scale. But we don’t want to burn out in the process. So how can you intentionally implement sustainable ways of working to scale your service-based business and support yourself, your team, and your clients?

If you feel stuck with a to do list and overwhelmed as you create or scale your business, this article will help you, we are talking all about being more agile in your life and business.

What are the agile ways of working?

Here what being agile can mean for your business:

1. Instead of putting a whole launch together in one go, break it up into smaller tasks
2. Evaluate performance continuously. This allows quick response and change when needed
3. Collaborate with others to help you (outsource or ask for help around you)
4. When you lead a project, empower those around you help add creativity

To be agile means to move quickly and easily. With the right guidance and support, you can be agile too!

How is Agile different from Waterfall

What does “waterfall'' mean?

This means everything is cyclical. It means everything is a priority and you spend your time putting out fires. You are scattered and feel like you have your hands in so many different projects. As your to-do list grows, your progress doesn’t. You might also always feel behind and busy. Do you relate to this?

Things to suggest you are in the ‘Waterfall’

1. Your to-do list never gets shorter
2. You feel you have 1000 things on your mind
3. You start so many projects and never finish

Now, let’s talk about agile. To be agile is to be cadenced. You work on a certain number of things in allocated time. You set boundaries around your deadlines and don’t get distracted on what needs to be done.

Things to suggest you are in the “Agile”

1. You have crossed off your to do list by the end of the week
2. You know where your energy needs to be at what time of the day
3. You know how long things will take to do

Really there is no right way to practice being agile. It can be flexible to the infrastructure of your business. But remember:

1. It is all about the people in your team
2. It is built off core values
3. It runs off authentic human connection and collaboration
4. It is followed by processes and documentation

If you prefer to watch a video, here is one that I’d love to share with my team members when on-boarding with how it is to work with me.

Applying agile - the step by step guide

In more detail, here is how to apply agile practices in your business (and life).

1. Set your cadence (aka sprint for the agile connoisseurs): do you work on 1, 2, 3 weeks increments?
2. Set your items that go into this sprint: What is the intention for this sprint? What are the top priority items that need all your focus and attention and are aligned with the intention? What are the upcoming tasks to be completed? By who? How much time each task requires? Are they independent from one another? Everything that comes up during the sprint that is not a priority goes into the ‘backlog’ (aka back burner) for the next sprint so you stay focused.
3. Schedule daily stand up (aka checking) for 5 to 15 mins or daily VM (voice message) on WhatsApp (which is how I do it with my current team on Essential Shift) to cover what has been done yesterday and what’s the focus today. If any blockage then cover it during stand down.
4. Schedule daily stand down aka one meeting where every hurdle or dedicated VM where hurdles, decisions needed are discussed.
5. Schedule a retrospective at the end of your cadence: Some ideas of questions to reflect upon with your team (or by yourself): What has been achieved? What are the next steps? What needs to be postponed to the next sprint? What needs to be deleted (you need to justify why because you prioritised it in the first place)? Who needs to be appreciated and for what? What worked? What didn’t work? Why? What to start, stop and continue?

The benefits of being agile

Here is a list of benefits for being agile - just in case you need more convincing

• It allows you to manage your bandwidth by allocating time and energy to avoid burnout
• You can plan at least a week ahead (if not longer)
• You can plan long-term projects (like a launch) in sprint phases to stay on track
• Your list will be short, which means you can be super focussed
• Your tasks can build on top of each other, building momentum and helping you get closer to your goals
• If you tell people this is how you work, it makes it easier to set boundaries

Want to work more sustainably in your business? Send me a message and I can share more about how I can help.