Running in a bustle might seem like a sign of success. After all, you bring in new clients, and there is a lot of work. The phone rings without a receiver. You reduce your sleep time by trying to do everything at once. You’re even doing well, or does it only seem so?
There is only one problem with this general scene. However, being busy in itself is not a virtue. What really takes skill is the ability to effectively manage, delegate, complete tasks, and still remain sane. If your life is filled with busyness, it’s time to control it again. Use this guide to figure out what you’re wasting most of your time on to reduce your stress and focus on the work that is really essential for your business.
Spend Your Time Effectively
Optimizing business processes requires that you identify the biggest waste of time in your daily schedule. But it may be challenging to determine them at a glance, especially when it seems like you devote a lot of time to basic tasks. Let’s examine your daily productivity to see where your business can be more effective:
Ways to Make Small Business Processes Simple
Running in a bustle might seem like a sign of success. After all, you bring in new clients, and there is a lot of work. The phone rings without a receiver. You reduce your sleep time by trying to do everything at once. You’re even doing well, or does it only seem so?
There is only one problem with this general scene. However, being busy in itself is not a virtue. What really takes skill is the ability to effectively manage, delegate, complete tasks, and still remain sane. If your life is filled with busyness, it’s time to control it again. Use this guide to figure out what you’re wasting most of your time on to reduce your stress and focus on the work that is really essential for your business.
Spend Your Time Effectively
Optimizing business processes requires that you identify the biggest waste of time in your daily schedule. But it may be challenging to determine them at a glance, especially when it seems like you devote a lot of time to basic tasks. Let’s examine your daily productivity to see where your business can be more effective:
Keep track of your minutes
Start by tracking your time usage over one day. Productivity consultants suggest jotting down all of your daily activities on a piece of paper. Write down what you did and how long it took and be honest. Find the work-related activities you usually spend the most time on.
If you are combining two jobs at the same time, let’s say, you run an e-commerce store in Nigeria and work in the Forex trading niche to cover your expenses before your business becomes profitable, write down not only what you do and for how long but also how much money you have managed to make with Forex trading. The time spent on self-education on useful resources like Forextime and additional courses should also be taken into consideration.
If recording your tasks is distracting or bothers you, make use of an automated time tracking tool. For instance, Toggl. This tool is linked to your web browser to show you where you are on the Internet. Later, you will be able to check a chart with categories of time spent on particular resources. It would be also good if your employees track their time as well.
Find templates
Look for patterns in your daily habits. Which tasks are the most common in your activity? What time of the day do you usually spend doing nothing except scrolling the feed of social media? Divide them into categories, like essential and not.
Simplifying the Processes of Your Small Enterprise
Checking out your personal and professional productivity is a crucial step towards the higher effectiveness of your small venue. After that, it’s time to get rid of your biggest time-wasters with working solutions. We’ve compiled a list of essential tools and strategies that will help you get more tasks done faster and better.
Here are the general areas in which new companies are losing the most time:
● Customer service
Have trouble tracking requests? Can’t answer in time? Whether they call you, leave reviews on Yelp, or send an email, customers will reach out to you any time of the day. When you answer these queries on your own, things can get hectic.
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For more efficient customer service:
One-on-one communication with all of your clients is a great way to understand their pain points. But if a significant amount of time is devoted to these interactions, it may be time to delegate the task. Being around
your customers and making personal connections doesn’t mean they have to have your personal phone number.
This might be an automated phone system like Grasshopper, which includes intercepting customer voice messages and sending their transcripts to your phone. As an alternative, you might consider installing an app for a live chat. For example, Bold360 is a tool with customizable live chat and technical support.
● Meetings and communication
Meetings are arguably the biggest source of wasted time for small businesses. This also applies to phone calls and Zoom sessions. Do you and your business partner call each other ten times a day? Are you sure your meetings are effective?
To shorten meeting times:
Fewer meetings. Here’s a general rule of thumb. If the meeting doesn’t have a clear agenda, don’t arrange it. Cancelling appointments may seem like you are relaxing, but in reality, you are making it hard to free up some time for more effective tasks.
The key to reducing the number of appointments is to make them really effective. Instead of arranging three meetings a week, try having only one meeting on Mondays. Use this time to discuss ideas and challenges and assign actions to every employee. Each person should leave the meeting having a specific task, expecting them to submit a resume at the next meeting. There are also plenty of tools like GotoConnect that help teams communicate without wasting too much time on meetings, both online and offline.
Conclusion
If you’re ready to do your day-to-day tasks more efficiently and save time, these small business strategies and tools can help you.
