10 Time-Saving Hacks All Business Leaders Need To Embrace.
All entrepreneurs want to get as much out of their limited time each day as possible. It seems that the life of a business leader is one that is filled with an ever-growing to-do list, and not enough time in the day to complete each task!
Fortunately, there are some ways that all business leaders can save time, regardless of their industry or type of enterprise.
These clever everyday hacks will make your life easier, and enable you to get more things completed. The shocking truth about the following hacks is they are so simple, you will wonder why you never considered them before:
1. An organized desk is an organized working life
Are you someone that has piles of paperwork, notes, and general “stuff” scattered all over your desk? And do you have to spend lots of time each day trying to locate important documents, hidden under stacks of invoices, reports, and Post-It notes?
If so, the first thing you need to do is create some order at your workstation! For a start, invest in a filing tray system so that you can organize and prioritize any incoming documents or notes. Next, recycle or discard anything you don’t need on your desk.
2. Ban yourself from social media
If your business revolves around social networking (i.e. you run a digital agency), you can ignore this work hack. However, if you only browse Facebook out of boredom or as a distraction from what you’re doing, it’s time to ban yourself from it.
Doing so will mean that you can better concentrate on the tasks you must complete each day. Let’s face it; you can use social media on your breaks or when you’re not working. It’s not a crucial thing that you need to do each day!
3. Leave the hiring to someone else
The last thing you want to do is spend several hours pouring over resumes or interviewing candidates for a new role at your company. It’s a more efficient use of your time to delegate that side of things to someone else in your business!
And if you don’t have an HR department, you can still outsource those tasks. For instance, you can entrust a payroll recruitment firm to find you top talent for your accounting department. Or you can pay an IT support company to manage your office systems and networking equipment.
4. Schedule in time slots to review your emails
Do you find that you always stop what you’re doing whenever Outlook tells you that you’ve got a new email message? If so, you aren’t making efficient use of your time. It makes more sense to schedule in time slots where you solely read and reply to messages.
If you find that you get a barrage of emails in your inbox each day, make use of your mail application’s filtering system. In a nutshell, you can divert messages from particular senders to specific folders, or you can flag them by order of likely importance.
5. Create a to-do list the night before you start work
It doesn’t matter whether you create a to-do list at work or home after you’ve finished your working day. What does matter is that you make a list of things you need to do for the next day.
That way, when you do start your new day, you won’t need to waste precious time curating that list! Plus, your memory will still be fresh with what needs to get done tomorrow or on the next working day.
6. Keep one day free of meetings each week
During your working day, you will no doubt have to meet with employees, suppliers, clients, and others at your workplace. You may even need to go outside of the office to meet people at other venues. As you can appreciate, meetings take up a lot of your time, especially if you need to go elsewhere to have them.
You should consider keeping one day each week free of meetings so that you can concentrate on your tasks without disruption. Some entrepreneurs find that they prefer to designate Wednesday as their meeting-free days!
7. Keep yourself focused by drinking plenty of water
Did you know that if you are dehydrated, you will find it increasingly difficult to concentrate on your work? With that thought in mind, it makes sense to drink a little water frequently throughout the day.
Also, remember that hot beverages like tea and coffee can make you feel dehydrated too – especially the non-decaffeinated versions.
By drinking plenty of water and keeping your hydration levels up, your mind will be quite sharp and focused on the work you need to do.
8. Take a five-minute time-out break each hour
You might think that taking time away from your work means you will have less time to complete your tasks. However, it makes perfect sense because it will stop you from “burning out” and feeling fatigued if you sit in front of your computer for hours on end.
What you do in your break is up to you. For instance, you could go for a quick walk around the block or even just sit outside to get some fresh air.
9. Complete the easiest tasks first
Imagine you have ten things on your to-do list for today. You know that two of them will take you hours to complete, while the remainder can get sorted out in a mere five minutes each. Many people will assume that it’s better to get the laborious tasks out of the way first.
But, it makes more sense to complete the easiest ones when you start your day. Why? The answer is simple. From a psychological perspective, you will only have two things to do if you follow the above example. That means you will feel like you’re not being overburdened with work!
10. Use a virtual assistant to complete tedious tasks
One last time-saving hack is to hire a “virtual” assistant for those jobs that are easy to do but take a lot of time. Examples might include tasks such as data entry, Internet research, or even “sanitizing” a list of contacts on a spreadsheet for a marketing mail-merge campaign.
Virtual assistants will do any work that is possible over the Internet or via email. Plus, they are affordable – even for sole traders.
