24 November 2022
Learn to maximize your time in your business
Being a small business owner, it is considerably normal to live everyday hustling. From beating deadlines, track payments, and manage customer demands, rest can somehow be a luxury. A lot can testify that having an effective time management strategy is the key skill to do important tasks for your business to thrive without stressing yourself too much.
If it seems difficult for you to master time management, here are few tips for you to jumpstart:
Set Goals Strategically
Having a disheveled disposition in every aspect esp. in making plans is the main culprit why your system gets chaotic, leaving you with loads of unfinished tasks every single day. In order to make things organized, you can start categorizing your chores and begin from the easiest or smallest task and work your way up. An effective goal setting can go a long way for your business.
You can start by listing five achievable tasks that you can work on for the week. Arrange it neatly and start working on day at a time. This gives you the momentum that will become beneficial when you’re about to work on bigger projects.
You can evaluate yourself and check your progress. Note where you are most productive, may it be during daytime or after running some errands. You can also make use of time-tracking apps like Toggl to monitor how much time you spend accomplishing a task. Once you figure out which time of the day you’re most productive, you can allocate important task during those times.
Utilise Helpful Apps
There are numerous helpful apps that can be used as an efficient small business tool. One is Wunderlist that allow you to take charge with scheduling and workflow. This app will help you prioritize tasks, reminds and shares your to-do-list with your team. You can access this app through almost every gadget, from smartphones, laptops, to smart watches so you can get through your responsibilities whenever, wherever.
There are also other apps like Harvest that can help track how much time you spent doing a specific task, this can help you become more aware of your productivity.
If you want to manage your overall workflow, apps such as Trello is effective in tracking and monitoring tasks, you can create boards where you can allocate task and just simply move it to a specific board once done.
Consider Task Delegation
It is normal to do almost everything for your business if you’re just starting. You’d basically learn everything from scratch, from skills to strategies. But as time passes and once you noticed that your business is growing, it is important that you learn to delegate task, you can do this by either outsourcing a team of expert or allocate responsibilities to an employee. This can maximise your time and give you the freedom to do other stuff.
You need to identify those tasks that you less likely want to do and delegate them to someone who is capable enough to handle it. If you keep on procrastinating, you’d end up with a bulk of task that can eventually become handful to manage. You can also get referrals from your professional network and hire someone who is credible to fulfill the job given.
Know where your finances are allocated
Managing your finances can be a handful and could take up a lot of your time. Planning ahead and creating a bookkeeping system can spare you from spending unnecessary time stressing about where your funds go.
There are numerous services online that you can utilise in order to help you organise and keep track of your accounts like MineralTree, Quickbooks, and Xero.
Keep away from unnecessary distractions
One of the biggest challenges a solopreneur faces is staying productive. Being a one-man organisation, you have to keep your focus and always be diligent in reaching your goals. This may sound too difficult to achieve but everything boils down to one thing and that is, discipline. You need to come up with strategies to avoid unnecessary distractions, you can make use of helpful app such as SelfControl that will block websites and apps so you can keep your focus. And also, it is important to separate work life, business life and personal life so you can make most of your time.
You also need to evaluate your daily routine or habits, if you noticed that things are not organized then you need to make a mature decision to make necessary changes.
If you have more questions about mastering time management, feel free to contact us today!
