Go ahead, make over my day

Home Office Computing, Jan, 1998 by Carol Dannhauser

Josephine Amplo has a tough time saying when one friend, then two, then three, asked her to pick up a few items at the grocery store, she willingly obliged. Word spread and, seemingly overnight, dozens of disabled, elderly, and busy dual-income couples began calling Amplo to ask her to take on the time-consuming task of food shopping. She hadn't exactly been looking to launch a business. But with three kids in college, Josephine's Shopping Service seemed like a great idea.

Three years later, Amplo's business is booming. That's the good news. The bad news is, she's spent. Although the professional shopper helps others gain hours, she needs to find ways to manage her own time better.

Whether you run a shopping service or head a software firm, managing your time efficiently is crucial to your bottom line. To show you how to get more done in a day, we examined the hectic schedules of professional shopper Amplo and packaging consultant Jim Larsen. Both entrepreneurs suffer from distinctly different time management ailments. Then we asked organizational experts Stephanie Denton and Virginia Bass to make over Amplo and Larsen's days, suggesting ways to decrease distractions and increase productivity. Here's how the small-business owners fared before and after their day makeovers.

Keep Your Eyes on the Big Picture

It's 9 p.m. on a Tuesday and Amplo has just returned home from a grueling 15-and-a-half-hour day. She's trying to nicely tell our reporter that she doesn't have time to talk. Her answering machine is blinking like a red light at a train crossing. She has dozens of calls to return and orders to take for tomorrow's work. Half an hour passes. "Can we maybe talk another night?" she asks. Ever polite, Amplo sees to it that people get what they want. Last month, she bought and delivered $17,000 worth of groceries for clients; she expects to dwarf that number this month.

When time manager Denton catches up with Amplo in her home office, it's Sunday. The shopaholic and her husband have exhausted the entire day sorting through the month's receipts, but she has found time to think about her goals before hooking up with Denton, owner of Denton & Co. in Cincinnati. Amplo's aspirations don't seem like a tall order: "I'd love to expand my business, and I want some time off." But according to Denton, this order won't be easy to fill.

Spending a day with the entrepreneur, Denton can see that Amplo's biggest problem is a common one among small-business owners: a reluctance to let anyone else handle daily tasks. "She needs to focus on the big picture," says Denton. If Amplo wants her company to grow, she can't shop, deliver, and take orders 24 hours a day. As it turns out, Amplo's already been using people she knows to do deliveries. "But she needs to step up the hiring," says Denton. Why not scout for moms or dads who are free from 9 a.m. tO 3 p.m.? The organizer suggests that Amplo post a notice at the local Gymboree or, better yet, the grocery stores where she shops. That way, she can hire workers who are familiar with food stores and devote more time to her role as CEO.

Another problem Amplo faces is wasting time taking telephone orders. To remedy this, Denton recommends that Amplo create a cut-off time after which clients can't place orders. And in addition to bringing someone aboard to help out with the food shopping, Denton suggests that Amplo hire an order taker. This way, she won't have to return calls she misses while she's out of the office.

Denton also suggests that Amplo streamline her order-taking process by asking clients to fill out forms before they call in. To do so, Amplo needs to create an inventory list of everything in the food store, by aisle, and hand it out to regular customers. A program such as Caere Corp.'s OmniForm (800-736-5735; Win, Mac; $149) will not only allow Amplo to scan in her list, but it will also help her create a database of back orders. To expedite orders, she should provide a fax number on the form for requests. Eventually, she might even want to post a fill-in-the-blank form on her Web site. By organizing the process, Amplo and her assistant will reduce the time they spend on the horn and eliminate the chore of re-creating grocery lists each time one of them picks up the phone.

BEFORE: A Day in the Life of an Overwrought Professional Shopper 5 a.m. Wake up, wake my husband. Put the clothes that I washed the night before in the dryer. Empty dishwasher. Take shower. Fold clothes. Straighten up and make beds. 6:30 Arrive at the food store and begin shopping. I shop for each order, pay for it, and put refrigerated items in the back room. 11:30 to noon Shopping done, a boy from the store helps me load my car. 12:15 p.m. Start my deliveries. 5:30 Arrive home (this is a good day, there was little traffic), check messages, decide what's for dinner. I take the food out, but the phone rings. Dinner never gets made. My husband puts something on the grill when he gets home. I start my callbacks, and another order comes in. I put the machine on and eat real quick. 9:30 Take my last order. I have a cup of tea and try to plan out the delivery route for the next day. 10 Mail business cards and literature to new client who called yesterday and today. My husband stuffs the envelopes. 11:45 Complete my daily log, putting the next day's shopping lists together according to where the items are in the store. 1:15 a.m. I just need to go to bed!