As an entrepreneur, you juggle many tasks at once. So, productivity is crucial. However, you may not realize how minor changes can improve your workflow efficiency significantly.
Whether it’s setting SMART goals or waking up at 4.00 a.m., successful business owners have their owned trusted productivity hacks. Here are the top ones to grow your business fast.
1. Focus or Fail
As a business owner, you need to have laser focus to be productive and successful. It’s not just about what you’ll focus on, but it’s also about what you’ll do despite the distractions. It’s all about focus, focus, and focus! Some people find it helpful to think of the top 3 things that they have to do, and only focus on those until they are complete. There are lot’s of focusing techniques out there for you to practice and research! Find what works best for you and work on it every day.
2. Time Management
The driving force of productivity and success is how you manage your time. This is the raw material for businesses. With many pieces every day, a business owner must focus on what’s urgent and important. Sometimes it’s tempting to give attention to things that are just pressing, ignoring the most important things. Since we all think of time differently, and understand time differently it’s so hard to give you time management tips. The best one that I’ve started to use more frequently is setting 30 minute timers. I work for that time frame, and then either continue working on the task if it needs it, or use that alarm sound as a signal to switch gears.
3. Innovation
Risk taking, bootstrapping and innovation are the hallmarks of businesses. However, some crucial management aspects like productivity, profits, and systems are overlooked by many business owners in the quest for success.
Sometimes business owners ignore productivity, citing the need for innovation. But in a resource-starved business world, higher productivity translates to better use of limited resources. So, innovation and productivity can go hand in hand if they’re incorporated in the company structure in a non-confrontational way. Innovation should never get in the way of productivity though, and it’s hard to separate the two in our schedule. Try scheduling 20 minutes of “Innovation Idea” time every week, so that you have time and space for all of your great ideas.
4. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
Many business owners face challenges while building their company, particularly in building a team or raising funds. There are several tools to help grow a business effectively, but we all have limited time. And while time is crucial in every stage a business is in, it’s even more crucial in the formative stage.
When growing a business, it’s common for most business owners to multitask. But this hampers their productivity because they end up doing many tasks which they can delegate. Raising funds can deter someone from focusing on their core operating areas.
To improve your productivity and grow your business, learn to delegate tasks to your employees as per their abilities and skills. Delegating is not running away from your responsibilities. Rather, it helps to get more things done in less time – improving your productivity and success. The Eisenhower Matrix is a great method of determining whether or not to delegate a task, if you need help deciding what’s most important for you to work on.
5. Bundle Tasks Together
Rather than jumping from one task to another, group similar tasks together. For instance, schedule all calls for specific times, and do all admin tasks together. Doing this will help you save time and it’ll reduce the mental energy it takes to switch from one thing to another. As a result, you’ll do every task faster and more efficiently, which will improve your productivity.
6. Find Your Golden Hours
“Know thyself!” someone once said, and it’s important for us also. Some people are more productive in the morning. Others are more productive at night. Stop worrying about managing your time of input and focus more on managing your energy. Take on daunting tasks during your personal “golden hours.” Doing this will improve your productivity and you’ll be able to grow your business fast.
7. Use Apps to Boost Productivity
There are many apps that can help a business owner save time. They have templates that cut down repetitive work. It’s good to explore some of these apps and also use time-tracking apps to know how you spend most of your time. Penn State research shows that people are more productive when using time-based apps that show their unproductive time.
All these strategies are easy to implement; they don’t require a lot of effort if you’re a busy business person and already feeling overwhelmed. Try these strategies today to boost your productivity and improve your workflow.
