As a small business owner, multitasking is an everyday part of the job. When juggling many different tasks and roles, time management can become challenging, leading to mistakes and missed opportunities.
Excellent time management skills can be the defining element that turns any entrepreneur into a successful business owner. Time management also reduces time wastage, so you can focus on the important things. Here are six ways you can ensure the best time management for the running of your organisation.
Plan ahead
With any aspect of your business, preparation is key, so when completing any job, it’s important to organise it into steps. Allocating dedicated blocks of time or resource to specific tasks and identifying the core requirements for a project will help to shape a framework for your team to work within. Of course, things may change and evolve as the business moves forward but remember that amending plans is always better than not having any at all.
Why not try writing out five business goals at the start of every week; this will give you and your employees a focus and a way of measuring productivity in a realistic manner.
Flexibility
As any small business owner will tell you, things rarely run smoothly in those early days. So, while planning is essential, flexibility is also necessary to ensure you don’t get stopped at every hurdle.
Weekly or monthly targets are effective rather than only sticking rigidly to yearly targets. They are more realistic and can more efficiently impact the needs of the business at that moment in time.
Keep track of time
When we’re busy at work, we can often finish the day not knowing where all our time went. This is why it is important to keep track of the tasks you complete, for example on a document or spreadsheet, or even just an old-fashioned notebook.
While this can seem unnecessary, this will boost your sense of work satisfaction, as you will be able to clearly see how productive you are each day. It will also help you to understand how long each task takes, so you can be more efficient when planning in the future.
Don’t be afraid to delegate
As a business owner, it can sometimes be hard to relinquish control. Delegating tasks to your co-workers when necessary is essential not only for the company’s overall productivity, but for your personal wellbeing. Being a business owner is a high-pressure role and feeling responsible for every task will only exacerbate that stress.
Understand which administrative tasks are best suited to each of your employees, and don’t be afraid to outsource the jobs elsewhere if you feel that they could do the job more effectively.
Aim to graduate from multitasking
As a small business owner, you can often undertake many different roles, from manager to receptionist to courier. As a result, multitasking is unavoidable to get a job done and flexibility is a key skill to be a successful leader.
However, there comes a point when performing every job in the business begins to prevent growth. Think of it this way: there came a day when Jeff Bezos stopped packaging books in his own garage and when Bill Gates brought in another software developer to free up his time to run Microsoft.
Try to get into the habit of focusing on one task at a time and spend it where you feel it will add most value.
Take time to focus on yourself
In the long-term, one of the biggest causes of time wastage can be poor wellbeing at work. Exhaustion at work can reduce focus which leads to mistakes, and high levels of stress can lead to health problems.
Ensure you take time to recharge and spend time with your loved ones. In the long-term, a good work–life balance is what will ensure the continued success of your business.