What questions would I like to ask to determine whether my hypothesis is true that there is a significant quantity of business owners, managers and consultants who have a disproportionate amount of stress arising from mismanaged processes and systems?
Are you stressed or in some kind of distress about your business?
Is a significant amount of that stress/distress coming from admin and comms?
How much would you pay someone to come help you sort out your admin, processes and comms?
Who has these problems the strongest? (Industries, roles)
Does work intrude on family commitments? e.g. working after dinner, missed social events
How's your general wellbeing? e.g. are you sleeping well, are you a bit on edge, are you worried about finances?
Did you know anything about business before starting your business or are you a first timer?
How big is your business?
What keeps you up late at night, worrying?
How do you decide what to do next—are you just going from your email inbox?
How long have you been in business? What's your turnover?
What do you want? e.g. would you like to be less stressed so you can be more present, or would you like to sort out your admin so that your business can be more effective?
How much time a week do you spend "catching up"?
How much "screen time" do you have a week?
What routine tasks do you procrastinate or hate the most?
How's general work-life balance, are you...
What feels like it's weighing you down?
Checking email after dinner?
Having to say no to friends, family commitments to catch up on work?
Tell me about some things you let fall by the wayside in order to work on your business (e.g. exercise, family time, "you" time.)
It's entirely possible that cashflow might be the number one stressor; in which case I might be pivoting more towards installing good systems that give you a really clear steer on cashflow vs. sales—business analytics.
What are some words that describe how you feel about your business? (e.g. stressful, scattered, behind)
"I am incredulous that people do 8-9 hour days at work, then sit on the train every day and read books for pleasure – it looks awesome! I work from the moment I am on the train in the morning ‘til the moment I get home at night. I love the flexibility of my work, but I pay for it in hours and in worry about making billing targets."
Demographics
How old are you
Married/Unmarried/Kids?
Where are you based
What is your position
How many people report to you?
What tech tools do you use to save time? e.g. email, phone, Google Calendar, CRMs, Xero?
How much is spent on communication? (e.g. email)
What are you using email for
I'd like to find something out about how you prioritise tasks, decide what to work on every day.
What would you like more time in your life for?
Something about decision-making—do you feel like you're able to make good decisions? Urgent stuff and important stuff?
What am I trying to find out? I'm trying to find out if there are enough stressed-out people whose stress comes from things that could be solved with better habits, a few more tools, or better visibility on key parts of their business.
Factors
click to edit
Email Inbox
Browser Tabs
Desk Clutter
Time it takes to do stuff when someone asks you
Freeing up time and attention to work on long term activities—the creative stuff that got you into your business.
What got you into this business?
Favourite and least favourite bits about your job/business?
Feeling like you're busy but just staying afloat?
- I'm hoping to find people with strong, negative feelings caused by stress in their business
- Where these negative feelings are contributed to or caused by poor processes, systems or habits.
- And find out which demographics suffer most strongly.
how do i quantify "low quality attention"
Do you feel like you're often the one holding up decisions?
How much is spent on delivery?
How much is spent on other back-office: e.g. invoicing, reporting?
Clear My Head
Three fundamental questions
What's shitting in your brain?
How does that make you feel
Can this particular problem be solved with tools and habits
"Has your head been shat in"
"what is shitting in your head"