Running any form of business is a time-consuming task. Time is always hard to come by as the world continues to develop. Even though we have the technology to make our work more manageable, you may not be able to add any extra hour to your day in your business.
However, there are proven strategies that business owners can adopt to help them manage their time while maximizing profits. This blog aims at explaining these strategies by using real-time examples and verified data. Shall we begin?
Outsource Some Duties
When starting any business, it’s easier to think it’s okay to handle most of the tasks alone, right? But as time goes by, you may end up feeling unproductive, stressed, and always tired. To curb this, it’s important to outsource. This means that your business will develop a practice of hiring a party outside a company to perform services or create goods that were traditionally performed in-house by the company’s employees and staff. Outsourcing will attract a larger talent pool, enable you not to hire many employees, and finally reduce labor costs. The hiring of independent contractors within your business will also provide continuity and risk management as contractors focus on the core tasks. For example, adopting services like bookkeeping and accounting ensures that your company gets accurate, up-to-date financial information when needed. Instead of paying millions of money on advertising, you can adopt online marketing. Taking advantage of social media, online marketing has proven to reach many customers, save time and reduce operational costs. Again, if you notice that your customers often complain and are rarely satisfied, employing an independent customer care service provider may guarantee new customers and retain the already existing ones.
Use the Time Management Matrix
This is a tool that defines the urgency and importance of tasks within a business. It is a tool created by Steven Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Steve explains that the model is built on four quadrants as follows:
- Urgent and important tasks.
- Not urgent but important tasks.
- Urgent but not important tasks.
- Not urgent and not important tasks.
As a business owner, always tackle quadrant one first. This may include things like responding to a client complaint that can ruin your business reputation. Tackle anything in quadrants two, three, and four respectively, considering that all quadrants add up to your business.
Avoid Multitasking
Focusing on one thing is very critical to any business owner. Ideally, the human brain can only manage to do one thing at a time. This means that trying to run multiple projects together results in reduced productivity. According to research done by the American Psychological Association, multitasking steals your time.
Chronic multitasking affects your ability to hold, process, or even retrieve information from your mind. Focusing on one thing at a time increases your turnover, adds value to the project you are handling, and keeps you focused.
Put a Limit to Distractions
Distraction is one of the most common problems that both business owners and their employees face. As the world becomes more technological, the more our universe becomes noisy. This means that remaining silent and focused at work is nearly impossible.
For example, things like social media platforms are a source of distractions as people try to scroll through videos, comments, and likes. To help minimize this, you can keep your phone in airplane mode. If this is not possible, keeping your phone away and turning off notifications can help.
Also, closing your door and being offline for a few hours can help you focus on key aspects of your business. Adopting apps like OmniWriter and FocusBooster can help to keep you on track by minimizing your digital interaction while at work.
Adopt Time Tracking Tools
Even if digitization has brought lots of distractions into the business world, it has its goodness too. Humanity can take advantage of the tools and various applications to track time. These apps not only help business owners save time, but also help them to know how their employees manage time.
Some of these time tracking tools enable business owners to understand how many hours are going into performing a specific task. This is what measures efficiency within a business. Zoho Projects for example helps you keep track of ongoing assignments as well as the time needed to do that.
The Bottom Line
Time management is not a skill that an individual can learn overnight. It takes months and even years to master the skill. As the business grows, the workload evolves as well, and therefore learning how to manage time is key. If you are a beginner, take baby steps by finding tasks that align with your work. Take note of what takes less time to accomplish and begin by that. Also, establishing deadlines and adhering to them helps to keep your head occupied with productive tasks.
Above all, taking a break from work is also a time management strategy. This is because failure to rest leads to brain fog and stress, rendering you tired and unable to finish tasks. Therefore, as long as we work, let’s not forget we require energy and replenishment, which comes from rest.
Sapphire Info Solutions is one of the early adopters of cloud computing. Apart from using all cloud-based accounting systems such as SAGE, Myob, Xero, QuickBooks etc., Sapphire Outsourcing has developed its own enterprise software platform to manage workflow, increase productivity & workflow visibility. Sapphire Outsourcing is also a pioneer in adopting new technologies to help you achieve digital transformation in your business.
