Getting out of the Weeds: Are You Getting High or Getting Your Processes Organized?
“The first step to escaping the weeds is to identify them!”
- Lindsay Connolly
The term "getting out of the weeds" is an idiomatic expression commonly used in American business, management, and problem-solving contexts. While it’s hard to know the exact origin, it draws an analogy to navigating through dense vegetation or tangled undergrowth. I have grown up with this term, so I was really surprised to find out this term is not commonly known globally.
At a recent networking event, as a group of us were discussing what we do in our business, I proudly stated: “I help entrepreneurs and small business owners get out of the weeds of their business operations. Some mistook it for a reference to getting high. This inspired me to delve deeper into the concept, its origins, and how I assist in organizing business processes and systems when feeling overwhelmed.
Understanding the Weeds
In the context of business operations, "the weeds" refer to low-level tasks and operational details that are necessary in any business and are fundamental to ensuring the business can run properly, but can be time-consuming and overwhelming.
Some examples of “The Weeds” are:
Weed #1: Spending your time on non-business driving activities. You literally cannot change the number of hours in a day, however, you can change how you spend those hours. If you consider what you have been doing today, did you spend your hours on activities that were driving your business forward?
Weed #2: Spending all of your time in the detailed operational tasks within your business. This is similar to Weed #1, but I will challenge you to make the difference that, in this Weed, you are actually just numbing your mind by clicking around on your computer to “do that thing that needs to be done”. It is very likely that the activities you spent doing are repeatable and easily actionable by another person.
Weed #3: Burning out your brain on tasks that are not your Superpower - Listen, we are all really good at certain things, but we are not all really good at everything! I agree that it’s important to spend time learning new skills or working on personal development to grow your mind and body, but spending your time on an activity that is not your Superpower is wasting you time (and money quite frankly).
How to Escape “The Weeds” and Embrace Efficiency
While “the weeds” are essential to keeping your business operational and running, you spending excessive time in those details can limit your growth and progress in your business.
The first step to escaping the weeds is to identify them! If you are not even sure what the weeds are, you are not going to have an opportunity to get out of them!
Identify: Identify what the weeds are in your business. What are the tasks that you need to do to keep your business running?
Define: Define the details of those tasks. Answer the common questions:
Who is benefiting from the task?
What are the steps to complete the task?
Where is the task being performed?
When does it need to be performed?
Why does it need to be done?
Schedule: Define the schedule and cadence that this task needs to be done. Schedule it in your calendar so you can remind yourself!
Organize: Make sure you understand all of the steps of the process so that you can communicate it properly to someone else
Delegate: It’s time to get that task off your plate and out of your “weeds”! Find someone that can help you execute the task regularly.
If you need help with the HOW to do all of these steps, take a look at my free workbook on Stress-Free Delegation.
In this workbook, I will guide you through the 5 Actionable Steps to get yourself out of the weeds of your task list and start having time to work on your business instead of in it.
After you are done working through these steps, you will start to feel relief, both in time AND MIND, from the weeds that have been overwhelming you! This is how you can escape “The Weeds” and start building efficiency within their business operations.
