Senior content editor at Houzz Amanda Pollard explains how to avoid admin tasks taking up your time and keeping you away from designing and selling kbb projects

Admin tasks like creating quotes, sending invoices and building accurate estimates are all important elements of running a renovation business, but they can easily feel overwhelming and take you away from designing and building beautiful projects for your clients.

So how do you stay on top of these tasks while making sure you have the time to do what you do best? Houzz.co.uk, the leading platform for home renovation and design, shares tips its community of professionals employ to reduce the overhead from admin tasks.

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1. Structure your time

When you’re faced with a long to-do list, it can be tricky to know where to start. And trying to juggle multiple things at the same time is not the most efficient way of working through your day.

Professionals on Houzz suggest organising how you structure your time. “I find it easier to allocate a specific time each week to prepare quotes and invoices, as it can very easily eat up most of the day,” Chantel Elshout of Chantel Elshout Design Consultancy, a design practice on Houzz says.

“I also prefer blocking out a few hours each week for design work and try to switch off my phone or email in order to focus on the project in hand.”

2. Automate actions

Studies show that responding to enquiries within one hour significantly increases your chances of having a meaningful conversation with the decision-maker.

However, we know it’s not always realistic to respond in detail right away.

So consider setting up automatic responses to messages or enquiries that come in after hours to satisfy the potential client’s need to know that their message was received while giving you time to wrap up what you’re doing.

3. Create repeatable processes

Many tasks, like responding to client enquiries and building estimates, follow the same workflows every time, so save those precious extra minutes by using a system that allows you to streamline these processes.

Liz Ennis of Wolfe Interiors recommends using management software. “Houzz Pro has significantly changed the way I work. My workload is lightened, and I can easily maintain a professional approach to all live projects.”

Houzz Pro features, such as quick-reply templates, let you draft an email or text response that you can use over and over again.

With the estimate builder tool, you can create estimates using a project template or create one from scratch to use for current and future projects.

4. Communicate effectively

Communicating with your clients and responding to questions through multiple channels can prove time-consuming, especially when it’s information you’ve already shared via another channel.

With Houzz Pro, you’re able to provide your client with their own dashboard, where they can access all communications, documents and timelines in one place, empowering them to find the information they need without having to come back to you.

5. Double down on design

It pays to get the initial brief and design right, to reduce spending time on multiple review cycles further down the line.

Ensure you are working effectively with your client from the start and truly understand their vision, so you avoid any big changes to clients’ choices later on.

Remember, any design changes once a project is undergo might result in recalculating estimates, creating change orders and updating invoices, all adding more admin tasks to your plate.

Houzz ideabooks are a great tool for homeowners to share visual inspiration with you that will help articulate their vision.

Not only can ideabooks be used remotely, but whenever is convenient for each of you.

This can help eliminate unnecessary back-and-forth between you and your clients.