Double Your Productivity – Time Management
Do you find yourself struggling to do all the tasks that you need to do every day?
Running a small business takes some considerable organizing and effort to pull off efficiently. Wearing many hats, plus balancing home life requires being organized and to be more productive.
Here are four easy tips that I guarantee will make you twice as productive:
Keep your office or workshop organized:
A lot of people I know work in clutter, piles of paper on their desk, files laying around, etc. They all say the same thing, “It’s my file system – I know where everything is.” Yea right, they say that until you ask for something and they start shuffling through the pile of junk.
For a business to be productive you need file systems to increase your productivity and success.
Get into he habit of always filing items you don’t need right away, and throw away things that have expired or you don’t use.
Example File Folders:
- Bills To Be Paid – pay them all at one time.
- Receivables – after you send out an invoice place a copy in here to be followed up when you invoice again.
- Estimates – all new estimates go here until accepted or rejected
- Jobs to Do – this is your work schedule folder
- Work completed – file all completed work here until t he year end and then place in cold storage. [make sure you have all of their contact info for future marketing efforts]
- Taxes – year to date
- Expenses /Receipts – All my expenses go into the “bill to pay” folder until I record them in my Quicken program. Then I file them here.
- Insurance
- Equipment
- Website / computer Info
Prioritize your to-do list
You first need to be making daily to do lists. Then you need to prioritize them according to their level of importance.
Work on ONE thing at a time and complete it before moving on. This will make you focus only on the most important tasks at hand. Imagine how productive and less stressed you will be if you complete all of the most crucial tasks first.
Lesser important items go at the bottom of the list and may even get push to the next day.
Work on the least fun or hardest component first:
Stop procrastinating and Get It Done!
Saving the hardest task for last or at the end of the day where you may be tired or less focused is a recipe for failure. Getting the hard stuff done first takes all of the pressure off and allows you to coast.
Doing the tough stuff first will make you more discipline and way more productive.
Re-think your procedures
Many of our tasks we do because, “that’s how we always did it.”
Now is the time to look for better, faster, safe and more productive way to get your work done. This may mean hiring someone, buying a piece of equipment or software or just re-thinking how you accomplish things.
By periodically revisiting your procedures you can make a tremendous impact on the amount of time on task, increase your quality or save money.
Now ….. “go get-er done!”