As an entrepreneur, you’re probably juggling many responsibilities at a time. Furthermore, you probably don’t want to spend too much time doing one activity while streamlining your work process.
However, once you know the right tips and tricks, you can quickly maximize your productivity and generate more results for your business and yourself. Here are some smart hacks you can follow
- Know Your Team. Nothing slows down a team other than improper delegation. If an employee is good at content writing, don’t ask them to prepare a financial forecast for you. Companies can’t afford to spend too much time getting one task done correctly.
- Manage Time properly. Customers are looking for fast and efficient services. Unless you can provide it to them, they’ll not work with you. Simultaneously, all record books, website updates, and project plans should be finished and done quickly. Otherwise, you may miss crucial deadlines and push your company to a disadvantage.
- Focus On One Task At A Time. You may want to multitask, thinking you’ll get more done in less time. However, that’s not the case. Individual tasks need an appropriate amount of attention, and you may overlook crucial details if you’re not concentrating on them. It would help if you divide and allocate a section of your day to each task. Suppose you can conduct all meetings early in the morning.
You can dedicate an hour of your time to checking emails and returning to them in the middle of the day. Through this method, you are not only checking each task, but also giving them an appointed time so that you don’t mess up while multitasking.
This same method can also be helpful if you’re trying to advance your education while managing your business. For instance, if you are enrolled in an online MBA no GMAT required, you might want to allot separate business hours from your time to study by creating a schedule. It will help in balancing both the activities for better productivity.
- Use Website Blockers To Avoid Distractions. When using your computer and working online, you may get advertisements or websites that may distract you. Optimize your device to limit distractions.
You can even download apps that won’t let you access unproductive and unnecessary applications on your computer and keep you on your productivity path. It would also help if you owned a password manager and keep all your passwords safely stored and easy to access.
- Plan Ahead. It would help if you could make a plan ahead of time. This can be a plan made first thing in the morning. You can start by planning out longer tasks and make sure you bundle smaller jobs together before you leave. It would help you consult a weekly calendar and fit in all your appointments at an appropriate time. Observe the number of tasks you can get done in a day and how much free time you’re left with for yourself. Remember, your health also matters as much as your work. It would help if you had time to either go for a walk or relax without worrying about work.
- Wake Up Early. This is the most straightforward aspect of your life that you can control. As an entrepreneur, you can get a lot more when you’re awake in the morning than in the middle of the day. The more you delay waking up, you may end up exhausting yourself before midday. The morning is also an excellent time to get rid of tasks such as checking your email. It may also help you track things like inventory or shipments ahead of time if needed.
- Minimize Decision Fatigue. Sometimes you may get wrapped up in mundane tasks such as what to wear and what to eat. It would help if you made a plan for such decisions to keep decision fatigue at bay. You should organize your wardrobe according to what you should wear every day. Go for meal management and make a lunchbox every week.
Through this method, you’ll save precious time and protect yourself from getting stressed or confused while thinking about these routine tasks. You can take notes from successful businessmen such as Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, who chose to wear the same outfits every day.
- Manage Work From Home. As an entrepreneur, you have the liberty of staying home. Rely on digital communication to talk to your employees. Unless necessary, avoid going to work and let your managers handle the office load. The unnecessary commute is distracting, and if you catch heavy traffic, you end up losing precious time on the road at the expense of time that could have been spent productively at home. It will help if you have an office at home that is off-bounds to your family members, and take breaks after accomplishing a set number of tasks.
- Set Your Boundaries. You need to be able to say no. Your employees and clients may ask you for multiple things in a day. Remember, your goals have a schedule, and you shouldn’t squeeze in any last-minute adjustments.
You may appreciate innovation unless it can get immediate results and doesn’t interfere with your current goals. Still, it would help if you didn’t let it sway you. Set boundaries and let your employees know what your immediate plans are and what you can’t do at the moment.
It would help inform them when you’re ready to entertain a new idea and conduct a meeting once a month to discuss all these ideas.
- Keep A Note-Taking Tool. Your phone and laptop should always have note-taking tools. It could also be a notepad and a pen. It would help if you penned down any critical letters at all times and when inspiration strikes. Keeping tools on you would also save you from spending time searching for them, and if you’re in the middle of a discussion, you may lose valuable advice. Your notes may also have discussion points. Unless you can see them, you may lose the opportunity to consult them and maybe mess up a potential meeting.
- Don’t Be A Perfectionist. You may want to micromanage your employees. However, it would help if you avoided this habit at all costs. Focus on what you want out of the tasks your employees submitted over how they did it. If you’re getting the desired outcomes and are making a profit, avoid correcting your employees consistently. Trust in their method and let them approach their work over how you want it done. You can always discuss areas of improvement in a quarterly meeting daily.
Wrap Up
As an entrepreneur, you need to manage your time effectively. You should know who your team is and delegate tasks to them. Focus on one task at a time and keep away from all distractions. Try to wake up early and plan on what you need to do.
Try doing all your work from home and set boundaries on projects you cannot handle for the time being. Don’t entangle yourself in decisions that will take too long to achieve, such as what to wear or eat. Finally, keep a notepad at hand and don’t micromanage anyone. These hacks should help you become a competent and productive entrepreneur.
