From Overwhelmed to Systemized: Content Creation Workflows That Save Hours Each Week - Heather Ritchie

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00:03 Well, hey there and welcome to this presentation on from overwhelmed to systemize content creation workflows that are going to save you hours each week. So in case you don't know me, my name is Heather Ritchie. I am a certified content marketing strategist, SEO content writer, and AI specialist and I am so excited to be here talking about this topic because literally building systems in my business plus adding on AI has been life changing.

00:30 And not to be dramatic, it really has been life changing. I can get so much more done and I've been able to scale my business so much faster without adding team members so I think you're really going to love this topic so let's dive into the presentation. All right, Are you ready for the good stuff? We're going to take you from overwhelmed to systemized. I know the whole idea of creating systems in your business can be overwhelming, like you know you're supposed to do them, but it's kind of like, how do you do that so this is going to help you with that and then give you 6 different workflows that you can use in your business related to content creation.

01:10 But you can do this in all aspects of life i have it for finances, admin stuff, just social media, anything that you can think of, my Facebook group videos, like I have so many systems in my business that keep me really, really efficient i should say so.

01:29 If you feel like content creation is running your life, you are in the right place. Maybe you're staring at your plan or knowing that you need to post and have no idea what to do. You could possibly be winging it. I know I have several people that took my content planning course were like, I was winging it and now I know exactly what to do. So you kind of know you need to get content out there, but you're just throwing it out like not really being strategic about it.

01:54 And maybe you're scrambling to create content this week and it's already Tuesday or Wednesday, and then you could be spending hours, which you feel like is a waste when you're writing or creating content that no one engages with. And so this is going to help you get really efficient in a lot of areas that allows you to be more strategic. O I'm going to fix all of this for you i'm going to walk you through 6 workflows that can really save you hours each week and actually maybe make content creation feel easy and dare I say, fun again.

02:28 So here's what you're going to learn you're going to have simple, repeatable content workflows that you can use over and over. I'm going to be talking about some tools that help you eliminate decision fatigue. And then you're also going to have a process to plan, create, repurpose, and promote your content like a pro. Basically, we're not adding more to your plate. We're simplifying what you're already doing and I think that's what most of us need.

02:53 So why you need systems, even if you're solopreneur or you may have a small team. So basically systems are going to help prevent burnout by reducing, reducing task switching so you may have heard that every time you switch between unrelated tasks, it takes like 20 minutes to refocus and who has 20 minutes to really refocus and get back in the game? And so when you have systems, this really helps you work in those systems and SOP's and workflows that you have so that you're not switching between unrelated tasks.

03:25 It's also going to save you hours redoing repeatable steps like you could automate things and different things. So I'm going to tell you about my systems breakthrough. I have been trying to build systems in my business since back in 2000 and probably 19 is when I started and that was when I knew I needed it but didn't quite understand the whole system thing i even joined a membership and I was like OK, so I had some systems i had a great project management tool, Trello that I love and I use Air Table as well for some other things like surveys, but I just running client work i have several chronic illnesses and then the other side of my business, you know, like being in summits and bundles or writing emails, you know, creating products and things like that.

04:05 I just told my biz bestie one day who I call the productivity queen. I said I don't have time to stop and get organized and she said you don't have time not to talk about mic drop. Omg moment because I was like, oh God, she's so right. So just by taking the time out to like, I mean, you don't have to take forever it's not going to take a week or something you can even do this over like you can do it over a week, maybe just 30 to 60 minutes a day. You just start small and we'll build from there. You're already doing the work, so let's just systemize it so it takes you half the time.

04:42 And so I want you to be like me. I'm telling you, I went from barely able to keep up with my promotional schedule with all the events that I was in to writing my emails for Black Friday six weeks ahead of time like we're talking that fast. And I have to take a good bit of time off of work because, you know, I have chronic illnesses and so this is what we're going to help you with. So I do want to talk about workflows versus processes versus systems because I know that can all be like, what is the difference? So a workflow is basically a step by step sequence that you take to complete a task.

05:17 So it can be like writing and publishing A blog post there can be like 40 different steps that you take. I think mine is 40 or 50. And then a process is when you have a group of related workflows for a bigger project so it could be like my YouTube video creation process you know, I have a couple GPS that I use there's writing a script, there's filming the video, then there's doing all the description and publishing it and all of that good stuff so there's a lot and then the system is the people, the processes and tools and all that that work together.

05:47 So for me, that would be like my Trello boards i have Sops, I have custom GBTS that I use. So for emails, it can be your email service, provider you, know for social media, it can be your social media scheduler. So that's kind of like a system so think of workflows as your building blocks, while processes are basically your routines and then systems there, that engine behind your business there what gives it gas and what helps you go. And so I wish somebody had told me this earlier in life, but yeah, found out a little bit later.

06:20 So here's where you're going to start to build a workflow as you go is how I like to say so I'm old school so you can grab a notebook and pen or open up a Google doc the next time you do a task that you repeat often so I'm talking about like writing and scheduling social media posts or creating YouTube videos or writing A blog post even it can be something admin in your business, like finance stuff do you reconcile your books on a certain day you know, what do you do do you have QuickBooks things like that like just think of everything, admin tasks, even how I, I have, I use Trello when I'm in a or bundle and I have like a whole system that I go through and I know exactly what to do each time because that SOP is burnt into my head and that's what you can do with your workflows.

07:10 You can turn them into SOP's and that's basically the standard operating procedure so you can hand that task off to somebody and they'll know how to do it exactly like you do. So focus on what you're doing, not what it should be like. Write down each step that you take and even better is a tool called Scribe and even the free plan you can do this. It will auto capture every move of your mouse, every page you go to, every click, and then it kind of turns it into a document that you can turn into an SAPI mean, how cool is that? I was blown away by how many steps it took for me to duplicate a sales page and thrive cart for a Summit or a bundle i mean, it was like 50 or 60 steps it was insane.

07:54 So that's a really easy way to do it. And then you've got it and you can just go in there and edit it and name it and then keep it O once you've documented it, you can actually otimize it to make it even more efficient you may find overtime that you need to change tools, or you just need to switch things around, maybe do things differently, or you can even delegate it later.

08:15 So the best workflows really aren't created in theory, they are captured in action as you do them so this turns those chaotic tasks or that long To Do List into structured steps that you can repeat, refine, and even hand off later which, who doesn't want to do that, right? So workflow number one is one of my favorite it's content planning and I know people are like content planning doesn't work for me, but it does when you have a system and you know what you're doing.

08:44 So the problem is, is you always are starting from scratch or you're just posting haphazardly maybe you're winging it, whatever it is. So a solution would be to plan monthly, quarterly, every six months, whatever you want to do with like a calendar, your pillow pillars and launches. So this is what blew people away in my content planning class. They were like, I had no idea. So when you're sitting down to playing your content for the month or for the quarter, what I do is I look at the launches I have coming up, am I launching a service am I launching a digital product am I in a summit or bundle that I need to promote? And then I plan my content around that and it just makes it so much easier because you're setting up your digital product course, whatever it is serviced as the answer to your people's problems.

09:30 So you know, you're educating, giving valuable content and doing some pre launch content, whatever it is that you do. This just makes it immediately clear like OK, my course on content planning is coming out this month i need to be warming my people up, you know, and you have content pillars too so you can do that. And you can do that whether you have offers or not. Maybe you just don't launch as much or maybe you just want to be, no, it's not pre launch content unless you're literally focused on a course, but maybe you just want to be warming up your people all year with what the main pillars are that you talk about so for me it's freelancing, working from home and content creation are my main ones and blogging.

10:11 That's it. So tools could be your project management tool, like I use Trello, Airtable, Airtable, I cannot speak to the Airtable and I use Google Drive to hold a lot of my documents. And then a pro tip, and like I just said, use content pillars or launches to reduce, reduce the decisions each week. If you have, you can rotate through a pillar a week, a pillar a month, whatever works for you. And then you're not having to decide oK, what am I going to post as much because you basically like I'm posting about content planning this week. So this has been really helpful for me. Then there's finding ideas in research. Like I'm, I would have stayed in college forever if it was not so expensive.

11:00 This is one of the things I like about running a business you get to educate yourself a lot. So I'm talking about product ideas, content ideas, any of that so the problem is, is maybe again, you're scrambling at the last minute what you're going to post or write about or maybe you like, I had that really great idea, but I have no idea where I put it. So your solution is kind of to keep an ongoing content idea library and to use tools like chat GPT or Claude or something like that to get content ideas.

11:33 So and maybe you use your product management tool like keep them in so I have what is called the content idea Idea Vault Trello board that I actually sell and it's literally a just a Trello board with about 30 different categories on content that you can just add your content ideas and you have one place to go to. So that's really good i also have my content idea Vault custom GBT that people are loving they get ideas from it. It's been a lot of fun to use. And then of course, use one place to store all those ideas what I like about a lot of the project management tools is they have an app that if you're on your phone, if you are like me, then you know that when you're usually when I'm getting ready to lay down and go to sleep at night is when my content ideas come to me and I'm like, ah, and so I can reach for my phone instead of going out to my computer clearly, and add those ideas to my trailer board.

12:27 So that would be a workflow too. What steps do you do to find content ideas? Well, for me, I'm a brain dump or brainstorm song. Then I may go over to my content idea Vault GPT, and I may go through that i also have a business strategist GPT for me that kind of like literally acts like a strategist with me on different things in my business. So whatever that is and then maybe like you list your content ideas in Google Drive or you list them in that Trello board or Air table, whatever it is.

12:59 Same with research there are different components of research to that You might do like going online to Google or maybe you search some of the, if you're doing science and stuff, maybe you're doing some of those document systems. I cannot remember what they're called for the life of me i used to have to research for my college degree but anyway, so that's, that was number two number three you could call it a content Sprint, but a weekly, monthly, quarterly, like content creation session, I should say, because I love nothing more than batching.

13:33 But batching doesn't work unless you know what's coming ahead so you really need to kind of know, OK, this is what I'm launching, this is what I'm doing these are my content pillars I'm working on. And then you know what's coming ahead so that you can actually sit down and batch it all so the problem is often when we do content creation, it may feel like chaotic or inconsistent sessions like you really don't have it nailed down to a certain time or time frame. So your solution is you can mapped out theme days like Monday you can do outlines Tuesday you could, you know, write, write captions, write different things.

14:08 Or you could do it by type, like you could do social media one day, blog posts the next. You could batch it all in one setting if you to two, but you can do this with other areas of your business too like I do finance Fridays so every Friday I'm reconciling all my accounts and I am doing everything in QuickBooks and making sure everything is up to date and making sure like all the bills are paid, you know, that I paid regularly.

14:33 So I'm just really, I like finance Fridays because it's on one day and I know what I'm going to be doing that day. So of course, your tools could be like, you know, your weekly checklist, SOP templates, custom GPTS, clawed, any kind of AI that you want to do in there. It could be other tools that you use it could be your social media schedule or anything like that. So when you are doing these workflows, also write down who takes care of the task and what tools you need to do it and like an overview of what it is, because in that way you can just kind of plug it into an SOP.

15:09 But that way, you know, exactly, OK, these are the tools I'm going to need to do this and it just you know that you're prepared, right when you sit down and you're not scrambling and looking for things, you know, it Canva could be another one that's in there we use Canva for a lot of things. So Canva could be one of your tools that you use. Write that down for every workflow that you do.

15:26 So I do my pro tip is as I know a lot of us have high energy days and low energy days or we have a lot going on in life and not I would use your best energy day or your best time of day to do your writing or filming and things that are more creative like I'm batching some Summit presentations right now it's on a good day, you know, my hairs fixed, I was ready to go out, you know, so that kind of thing. So that's why I love batching and you can do that with all of your content.

15:55 Then there's workflow number four which is content repurposing. Love that too i have a custom GPT that people love that does this. But the problem is, is you're creating everything from scratch when you need to get more mileage out of every piece you create. And one of my courses I turned 1 blog post into, it was actually more than 20 i think it was 40 or 50 pieces of content that you can just repurpose to the different platforms. So tools could be like chat GBT clog the repurposing genius GPT. It could be a formula template, which in the all access pass for this summit, you can get my content repurposing Genius GPT that's in that bundle so I'm really excited about that because people have been loving it too.

16:38 So you always want to repurpose your high performing content first so keep that in mind because that's pretty important. And.

16:47 If you, I would do one platform at a time, because if you're using chat TPT, for instance, because it's, you'd get better results. So I could maybe get chat GPP, write me an email first 1st i would turn that email i'd like, hey, can you turn this now into a LinkedIn post oK, Can you turn that into an Instagram post, that kind of thing? Because then that's going to give you better results number five is content publishing and promotion so the the problem is that you've got some great content probably, but it's poor traction or you just don't know what's going on.

17:17 So your solution would be like to have a promo checklist and SOP's for every platform or you might sit down and schedule out promotion. Like maybe you sit down every Monday or maybe you sit down and you repromote like all your blog posts or something. You can even do that through your social media media scheduler a lot of times but there are ways that you can sit down and promote and of course publish that content you may be scheduling it out and like a schedule or in WordPress, something like that. So I love to say automate what you can, of course, like your email, sequences posting on social media because that is going to do the heavy lifting for you.

17:53 Automation and AI together are the chef's kiss number six would be like a performance review of your content. So the problem would be like you have no idea what's working and you just keep throwing content out there. If you're not creating content that your people are necessarily liking or you don't know if they do or not so the solution would be to do a monthly review of your top post keywords, open rates, and other key performance indicators. So for tools, you could use an AIR table tracker. The analytics would come into play there. You may store stuff in your project management tool and then really next time you go to do content after that, you make real data-driven decisions use that data to decide what you're going to create and promote next so that you are only doubling down on what is working and not wasting time on things that aren't.

18:49 So imagine this instead before we'd be overwhelmed, stuck and consistent but after you're organized and, confident consistent, you have a consistent content flow and it's just, it's a feeling i cannot even explain to you how freeing that is. So this is what workflows and SOP's unlock for you. It's not just the middle space or it's not just the time, but it's also that space in your head to work on more strategic things and to implement things.

19:16 Because really we need to be working as the CEO's in our business too, and not the employee all the time and so AI and automation can do some heavy lifting for you. So different tools you can use we've mentioned a lot of these, but your project management tool, chat GPT, Claude and other AI tools, you may have SOP templates, social media schedules, your course platform, if you're creating digital products and courses, your email service, provider other humans, otherwise like known as your team, video filming and editing tools like Loom screen Pal, which was formerly Screencast O Matic, Vimeo, any of that stuff those would be the tools that you would use and you've got this i just want to tell you, you've got this.

19:57 You really don't have to work harder to grow. My parents were baby boomers and taught me to work hard and I would succeed so if anything was too easy, I thought I was cheating. You just need smarter workflows so just start small. Pick one workflow to start with this week and watch how much time you get back i think you're going to be amazed. And to help you out, you can download the Ultimate AI SOP Mini Toolkit so it's the perfect starter kit to begin building your own streamlined systems.

20:24 And it has an SOP template in it that I think you're really going to like and it walks you through using AI to create workflows for you or to help you. So I really hope you enjoyed this i had a blast doing it because this is just one of my passions so I will see you around.