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Freeing up time in your small business will help you to stop wasting resources, get more done, and make more money. Below, we’ll take a look at a few ways you can begin freeing up time in your small business right now.
Start The Day With Something Difficult
Starting the day with something difficult helps you to get the day off to a good start. Books like ‘Eat That Frog’ by Brian Tracy will help you to understand this concept better and see why it’s such a great one to stick to. When you do this, everything else will seem easier in comparison, and you’ll have a wonderful sense of accomplishment.
Prioritize Your To Do List
Take a look at your to-do list and prioritize your tasks. Ideally, you won’t have any more than 5 things that absolutely have to be done on any given day. If you have more than that, ask yourself if they are essential. If they’re not, you’ll want to move them. If you have time left over you can do them and they’ll be a bonus, but you shouldn’t clutter your list with them and risk feeling deflated when you don’t get it all done.
Automate and Outsource Where Possible
Automation and outsourcing are two of the best things any small business can do to free up time. Outsource whatever you are not able to automate. You can automate with different systems and platforms, and you can outsource things like your content writing and even your VHQ answering service. When you’re not wasting time doing the tasks that other people or systems could be doing, you’ll find your productivity goes through the roof.
Track Your Time
You need to be honest with yourself about where you’re spending all of your time at present so you can learn what your time sucks are. For many, it’s social media and emails, perhaps even spending too much time on a smartphone. Stay mindful of how you’re using your time, keep an eye on the clock (but don’t clock watch necessarily) and you should find you have the incentive to get more done. You might find it helpful to use the Pomodoro technique when you work for motivation.
Schedule Your Breaks
Having scheduled breaks is so important when you’re a business owner. If you don’t, you could end up working for hours, only to take a much longer break as a result – and this can result in not feeling like working after your break. You might also take more breaks than necessary, or struggle to get stuck in and do real work. When you know you’re going to give yourself a break in an hour, for example, you’re more likely to get stuck in and in that ‘flow’ state.
Schedule Time For Email And Social Media
Your email and social media can take up a lot of your time, especially if you’re not scheduling times to check them. You might find yourself checking them way more often than you need to, and this is another way you get distracted from doing real work. Avoid them first thing in the morning so you can get something important done, and then stick to the times you have allotted for the rest of the day.
Stick To One Task At A Time
No multitasking. Doing one task at a time allows you to stay focused and feel more accomplished overall, whereas doing multiple tasks at once can be confusing and slow you down. This is how lots of mistakes are made!
Limit The Meetings You Have
If you’re having meetings for lots of different reasons, it’s probably going to benefit your business to cut them down somewhat. Sometimes a meeting is called for, but you should have a very good reason for it. Most of the time, an email sent around everybody or even a Skype chat can be better.
Shorten The Workday
When you shorten the workday, everybody will actually feel more able to accomplish more within the time allotted. When you have more time, you tend to fill it with unimportant things because you know you still have plenty of time to get the important things that you really have to do done. By taking even just an hour off of your working day, you should see productivity increase.
Look After Yourself Physically And Mentally
Failure to take care of yourself physically and mentally will always lead to burn out. Getting plenty of sleep, staying hydrated, eating right, and exercise will all make you a better, more able business owner.
