If you’re anything like most other funeral professionals, by 9am you probably already have a to-do list that’s a mile long, a dozen calls to make, and a couple hours of sleep you’d like to catch up on. Your never-ending cycle of “must-dos” can overshadow how much time you get to spend giving your business (and yourself!) a little TLC.

Sure, of course your priority is always the families you serve, no matter how long (or short) the days are. But waking up in the middle of the night to yet another call can make it difficult to focus on making yourself and your business more productive.

But before you go thinking that there will never be enough time in the day to check every item off of your to-do list, take a look at your calendar. It’s possible that you didn’t even realize that June 21st is the summer solstice. The solstice marks the day of the year with the most amount of sunlight — at least in this part of the globe!

As the official longest day of summer, the solstice can also easily become your most productive day of the year. If you’ve been meaning try out a new time-saver, organize and check off the lingering items on your to-do list, or start a new productive habit, there’s no better day than today than to stop making excuses and get stuff done!

Take advantage of the longest day of the year and spend a few minutes to see how one (or more!) of these time-saving, life-hacking ideas will help you get more off your to-do list. These tools will help you and your business become more effective so that you can spend more of your valuable time and energy with the families you serve.

1. Organize Your Daily Tasks

Trello is a free tool that can help you delegate tasks and track to-do lists either for yourself or across a team. It’s easy to setup and intuitive to start using – you could do it in less than 20 minutes! It’s completely customizable, plus you can put the app on your phone so that your lists are always with you on-the-go. Does your funeral home use online tools like Google Docs to share important documents or contracts between your staff? Trello works seamlessly with Google Docs and other electronic document tools to allow you to upload, sync, and manage your documents seamlessly.

2. Let Technology Work For You

No one goes into the funeral profession because they want to spend hours on end fighting with technology. However, more families than ever are requesting memorialization products and services like videos and webcasts in addition to printed materials. Life Tributes software will eliminate the hassle while allowing you to do all your personalization in-house. You won’t need more than a few minutes to set up this software that makes beautiful, memorable personalized videos, websites, cards, programs, and more. Life Tributes is a simple tool that will allow you to spend less time in front of a screen and more time focusing on your families. You can try it for free with no contracts or obligation, and what better day to test it out than on summer solstice?

3. Make Yourself a Priority

Funeral professionals often experience long days one after another after another. Although you may not be able to take a day off, it’s important to find other ways to recharge. Set an alarm on your phone for at least twice a day to remind you to stretch or take a mental break — even if it’s just a short one. Keep healthy snacks in your office and your car to keep hunger at-bay for those extra long days.

4. Explore Ways to Automate

Think about tasks that you do on a weekly or monthly basis, and find out if there’s a way to keep them from continuing to pop up on your to-do list over and over. For example, services like Amazon or Jet make it easy to set up recurring deliveries of things you use most so that you’re not constantly reordering supplies in the knick of time. You can also take advantage of automatic bill pay programs through your bank to make sure you never worry about a late bill again.

5. Invite Families To Shop Online

The Sympathy Store is the easiest way to offer high-quality sympathy gifts and flowers directly on your website. Families can easily log onto your website, choose beautiful sympathy gifts, find family service information, know when they should send flowers, and even send flowers right to the families home… all without calling your funeral home. Think of how many hours you’ll save off the phone simply by having all that necessary information right on your website for anyone to easily find! It’s quick to set up and gives your families the ability to share more than just flowers — all with the click of a button. To learn more, click here to talk to one of our website success specialists.

6. Take Care of Your Health

One of the things funeral professionals are most guilty of is being too busy or working excessive hours that keep them from seeing a doctor. Take just a minute out of the longest day of the year to bookmark a virtual care website for when you don’t have time to go into the doctor’s office. There are a few awesome 24/7/365 services out there for when you have a cold, the flu, or just about anything else, such as MDLive or Virtuwell. Your local clinic or hospital system might also have a virtual care service. Hopefully you don’t get sick often, but just in case, these flexible options can help you to take care of yourself so you can keep going.

7. Use a Social Media Manager Tool

Social media, including Facebook, is a fantastic way for you to market yourself as an expert in the community and to create a space for families to come together and find out how to celebrate their loved ones. Tools like Hootsuite allow you to schedule your Facebook posts in advance. That way, you can line up the articles, quotes, or stories you’d like to share all at once when you have extra time — on a day like the solstice — and have them posted automatically. You’ll still be able to post in real-time when you want to, like when sharing obituaries, but scheduling all your other types of posts in advance will save you hours throughout the week and make using social media for your business a more seamless experience.

What are some productivity ideas that YOU want to try out during the summer solstice?! Be sure to let us know in the comments below.

Also be sure to click here to contact one of our experts to learn more about how The Sympathy Store and Life Tributes can help give you more time back now and throughout the year while enhancing the experiences of the families you serve.

Rilee Chastain

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