11 Ways to Save Hours of Time in Your Small Business — Every Week
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Every business owner knows that time means money. So, you should actively look at ways in which you can save hours of time in your small business every week to drive productivity and enhance the efficiency of your operations.
And when you save valuable time on certain tasks, you and your team will have more time to spend on other tasks. If you’re uncertain as to how to start saving time, check out the following eleven helpful solutions.
1. Maintain a High Level of Organization
First off, it’s essential that you maintain a high level of organization. When you’re not organized with every important element of your small business, you could find you and your members of staff spend too much time doing things like searching for files, waiting for responses from colleagues before certain actions can be taken, and not completing tasks in order of priority.
So, the sooner you adopt a system to stay organized every week, the sooner you can save time. You can do things like create a filing system, use spreadsheets, utilize calendars, and organize payroll records and business receipts to ensure you and your employees stay organized. In turn, you’ll save hours of time each week.
2. Prioritize Tasks
Prioritizing tasks is a part of maintaining a high level of organization, but it deserves its own mention. If you don’t prioritize the tasks that you and your team need to complete, you and your workers could soon fall behind with things.
On the other hand, when you effectively prioritize tasks, you can save time every week and ensure everything is completed in a timely manner. At the start of each week, you should make a list of all projects and important tasks that need to be completed and order them from high priority to low priority.
Assess which tasks provide your business with the most benefits and focus on them first. And it’s okay if you need to rearrange priorities as you go each week.
3. Batch Similar Tasks Together
Another way to boost productivity and, in turn, save time, is to batch similar tasks together.
That’s because when you complete one task and then switch to a completely different task, it can take time to readjust your mindset. Switching to various different tasks can also lead to greater mental exhaustion.
So, for example, don’t work through emails and then complete maintenance tasks before going back to the remainder of the emails you need to get through. Instead, group together similar tasks, such as emailing vendors and telephoning suppliers, to make your product more efficient and save time.
4. Use Software That Can Maintain Inventory Automatically
One of the best ways of saving hours of time in your small business every week is to use software that can automate your inventory. When tasks are automated, you can save a lot of valuable time and focus your time on other important business elements.
For example, if you run a brewery, it’s likely you currently use Google Sheets to organize your inventory. But that can be an inefficient process that ends up wasting time. A brewery, or any other kind of business, cannot handle it all with Google Sheets.
But when you use inventory management software, you can ensure your inventory is always accurate and your stock is never too high or low, without you needing to do anything manually.
5. Use Other Automation Tools
You can use other automation tools besides automated inventory management tools to help you save a lot of time. When you implement automation tools, you can simplify repetitive tasks and free up time to spend on other tasks.
So, consider automating things like your accounting and payroll duties by using accounting and payroll software like Zoho Book accounting tool.
You can save time by using automated email marketing tools to send messages to customers and vendors instead of individual emails. You can also use tools like CheckYa to automate the process of billing your clients upon due payments.
For subscription-based businesses, a platform like Chargebee will speed up recurring payments through a robust automation process. That means you no longer have to worry about inputting manual invoice data, as everything is synced to one easy-to-use platform.
You can also use tools like Buffer to schedule your social media content. And if you’re not already on board with the best ways of using social media, check out this helpful article about how to use social media sites for your business.
Automation tools in email marketing as well can greatly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of a business’s marketing efforts. ConvertKit offers a large array of features, but if you are looking for some alternatives to ConvertKit, there are plenty of other options as well!
You can also check the different accounting solutions at discovery-solutions.com to increase your productivity and save time.
At the end of the day, the more you embrace automation tools for various elements of your small business, the more you can ensure your company runs like clockwork, and the more you can save valuable time.
6. Utilize Time-tracking Software
To keep on top of your time management, it makes a lot of sense to use time-tracking software. It will enable you to better stick to the deadlines you set and help you to eliminate unproductive habits.
Consider using time-tracking software both for your own weekly tasks and for your employees’ tasks. When you can see how much time you and your team are actually spending on tasks, you can better identify wasted time and make improvements to help you save more time.
7. Avoid Multitasking
Many people like to boast that they’re great multitaskers. And many people believe multitasking can save a lot of time on weekly tasks. But the truth is very few people can multitask in an effective way.
Most multitaskers end up spending more time on each task they need to complete. Furthermore, multitasking often results in errors. And when mistakes happen, it takes even more time to correct them.
So, you should avoid multitasking because when one task doesn’t get your full attention, it can slow you down and result in errors.
Ultimately, no small business wants to see a drop in productivity and an increase in problems, so you can prevent that from happening by ensuring you give every weekly task your full attention before moving on to the next one.
Also, consider breaking your main tasks into milestones to work on them in stages to further enhance productivity and decrease the possibility of mistakes happening.
8. Limit the Number of Meetings You Have
While meetings can certainly be useful, they can sometimes be big-time-wasters. For instance, if you hold meetings with your team that last too long or are held too frequently, it can end up seriously wasting time. So, make sure you only hold meetings that are absolutely vital and ensure you don’t run over time when you do hold those meetings
Consider whether the information you need to provide or the things you need to discuss with your team can be completed without having to hold meetings.
For instance, if something can be summed up in a memo or email, go with that approach rather than wasting time by gathering everybody together.
And when you do hold meetings, ensure you carefully plan them ahead of time. You could also save time by hosting virtual meetings rather than in-person ones, as well.
9. Delegate More Tasks
By delegating more tasks to your employees, you and your supervisors or managers can save a lot of time. So, look at which tasks you could delegate. For example, you could enable appointed employees to order stock without needing to first get authorization.
Furthermore, when you allow workers to complete tasks that involve more responsibility, you can empower them. In turn, that will enable them to be more productive and satisfied in their work, which means you can create a high level of employee retention in addition to saving hours of time every week.
10. Outsource Tasks
You could also look at outsourcing some of your business tasks to help you save valuable time. For instance, you could use an agency to maintain your social media accounts, hire an accountant to do your taxes and other accounting tasks, or outsource an advertising agency to handle your main marketing activities.
You’ll want to make sure that it’s cost-effective to do such things, though. So, spend time looking at the different elements of your small business that you could outsource and weigh how much time you would save with the cost for each element you would outsource.
11. Set Yourself Deadlines
You’re sure to already set deadlines for tasks to be completed by your employees. But you should also set hard deadlines for the tasks you need to complete yourself. By doing so, you can majorly save time.
Establishing due dates can reduce the time you spend on projects and free up time for your other tasks. And by setting yourself strict deadlines, you’ll ensure you remain motivated and focused.
Summing Up
Whether you adopt all or some of the above time-saving methods, you can better ensure you save hours of time in your small business every week. It can be more than worth first spending additional time to look over the different methods you can utilize to save time in the long run.
To recap, you could:
- Maintain a high level of organization.
- Prioritize tasks.
- Batch similar tasks together.
- Use software that can maintain inventory automatically.
- Use other automation tools.
- Utilize time-tracking software.
- Avoid multitasking.
- Limit the number of meetings you have.
- Delegate more tasks.
- Outsource tasks.
- Set yourself deadlines.
Save time in your small business by delegating, outsourcing and prioritizing tasks and by utilizing automation tools and using softwares to drive productivity and enhance the efficiency of your operations
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