Running a small business can be exhausting. Between looking after clients, sourcing or making products, marketing, administration, and a myriad of other tasks, oh and 3 children, after-school clubs, and a house to run, you’re left with very little time if any (in my case none) to actually enjoy yourself. Whilst it’s great to be busy, there is nothing worse than a busy fool, you don’t have to spend every waking moment working, especially if you’re getting very little done with your time. Here are six effective time management tips to help you manage your time better.
Always In A Rush? Effective Business Time Management Tips
1. Stick To A Schedule
With so much on your plate, the last thing that you should do is improvise your days. This will quickly lead to wasted time and may even result in you forgetting to complete essential tasks, always manage your time effectively. For this reason, you should stick to a general schedule or routine every day. You should also make a list of everything that you need to do each day and complete tasks by their importance.
2. Include Time To Rest
As you plan your time management schedule, you need to make sure that you include breaks, as well as plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep. You should also plan for other self-care rituals, like daily exercise, cooking healthy meals, and any hobbies you enjoy.
📚 Spend more time reading:
🍂 Get outside for a walk: The health benefits of walking and the restorative properties of being outside include;
➡️ Increases your heart rate
➡️ Reduces fatigue
➡️ Increases circulation
➡️ Improves heart health
➡️ Increases energy levels
➡️ Improves your mood
➡️ Increases productivity
➡️ Improves short-term memory
➡️ Reduces stress levels
✂️ Arts and Crafts: Painting, doodling, drawing, collaging, craft kits the opportunities are endless.
Unless you take care of yourself, you’ll become stressed and sick, which can only ever result in a lack of productivity.
3. Use Travel Time Wisely
Teleconference facilities are a great tool for reducing unproductive travel time to meetings. That being said, there are some business meetings that you have to attend in person. To limit the time wasted, you should use your travel wisely by reading business books and blogs, listening to podcasts, and completing whatever work you can. If rest is what you need, then you could do that instead. Also consider piggybacking meetings, errands, jobs, etc … so they happen on the same day limiting your time out of the office.
4. Hire People Your Trust
Delegating tasks to employees or hiring a VA can take the pressure off you and frees up time, but this will only work if you have a team that you can trust. Because of this, you should ensure that you hire the right people and provide training before they begin work. For managerial roles, this might mean an Activia train the trainer class. Once you trust your team, you’ll find it easier to let go.
5. Eliminate Unnecessary Staff Meetings
As the leader, it is your responsibility to keep your staff informed of the goings on in your company. You also need to assign tasks and delegate work each day. That being said, a daily meeting isn’t required for this purpose. More often than not, these meetings are a major waste of time. For this reason, you should cut down on meetings and use company emails instead.
6. Identify Your Biggest Distractions
When your productivity is at an all-time high, the last thing that you need is a distraction. This will completely ruin your concentration and make it more difficult to focus once again. With that in mind, you should make a note of all of the things that distract you each working day, like email notifications, employees, working from home, housework and eating. Once you’ve done this, you can find ways to eliminate them.
Business owners are busy enough without wasting time each day. To cut back on the number of hours you lose, it’s super simple you need to conduct a time audit.
What is a time audit?
You simply write down and block all the activities you do over a period of several days in order to get a clear picture of how you spend your time.
This way you can examine and analyse how you are actually spending your time versus how you really want to spend your time. This is where you find you spend a bazillion hours on social media instead of doing the tasks that earn you money!
Are you ready to get sh*t done?! Check out my 10 page Time Audit digital download.
This post complies with my Disclosure Policy
