Make your day more Efficient
January 23, 2009 by Efficient Entrepreneur
Filed under Busi-Tips
Barely making a dent in your daily business to-do list? It can be unbelievably frustrating as you watch your to-do list multiplying each day as less and less is getting done each day.
1. Track your Actions. Write down what you do from the first minute of your day to the last. See which activities are taking longer than they should or where you can make your schedule more efficient. Just like you map out a route when you have to make 5 stops around town, map out your day to make sure you aren’t wasting time with self-defeating activities.
2. Delegate. Use this list that you’ve created to find simple, automated tasks that you can outsource. Printing receipts, responding to simple customer questions, getting links, writing articles are all examples of tasks you don’t have to be doing yourself. Hiring a virtual assistant or copywriter can run you $10/hour and let you focus on the more specialized areas of your business. If you find that you lose almost an hour going to the post office to ship packages, sign up for a programs like Stamps.com and sign up with USPS.com to have them pick up your packages at a set time. And always consider the intern route. Visit your local college or university and contact a professor in a subject relevant to your business, ask them to recommend some students in their class that would work well for your needs. Usually, your only obligation will be to write up a quick paragraph for the professor explaining how well the students performed.
3. Get into a routine. Everyone’s day runs more efficiently when it runs the same way everyday. You’ll find that simple everyday tasks become second-nature and you can focus your brain power on your next big marketing plan. If you know that your meetings can often run long, plan them in the late afternoon, so you can focus the first two-thirds of your day on being productive.
4. Reduce stress. Feeling stressed rarely makes you more productive. Stress make make you may feel that you need to get more done, but your mind and body tend to work better in a state of relaxed confidence. Ideas come to a calm and focused mind easier and you’ll be able to handle random “emergencies” much better. There is a difference from feeling a sense of urgency and feeling stressed. Urgency can make you work harder, but stress will just have you wasting time mulling things over or damaging the relationships that make your business work better. Good, vigorous exercise can be a great cure for stress. Smashing a tennis ball or pushing yourself on the treadmill will both drain the stress from your body and get some good endorphins pumping.
5. Focus. Many work-from-home entrepreneurs face the problem of not having dedicated “work timeâ€. Until you designate some “office timeâ€, everyday family tasks like laundry and grocery shopping can easily distract you from running your business. If you don’t have a home office or you find it hard to concentrate at home, heading out to the local Starbucks or library for an hour with your laptop would be a good start. Even if you don’t work from home, too many projects on your desk can easily keep you jumping from one thought to another without actually crossing the finish line on any of them. Dedicate a reasonable amount of time to each task you need to accomplish and do not get distracted for that dedicated amount of time.
6. Stop checking your Email. If you’re feeling that even when you’re in your office during your dedicated work time you’re not getting enough done, you may be suffering from the number one office timesink: E-Mail. Even when you are focused on your task, that new mail “Ding!†can quickly pull you out of your work mindset, ruining your progress. Pick only 2 times per day when you will check your email. Otherwise, keep your mail client closed. For most companies, the world will not fall apart if you respond to an email at 4pm daily rather than the second it arrives. And if it’s really important, you’ll be getting a phone call!
Making your work day run smooth and efficient should be your top priority whether you are working for a one-person company or for a multi-national 10,000 person corporation. Your focus during business hours should always be on your business not on your time. If you have any other helpful tips, comment them below and add your two cents.
