How Business Owners Can Save 10-Plus Hours Every Month
Time is essential to any business owner, no matter how big or small your business is. Here are some tips and tricks to teach you how to save time so that you can dedicate your energy and extra time to those things that really count.
1. Track Time
Sometimes business owners do not take into account how much time each event takes. In order to better understand where your hours go to, take note during a week’s duration of how much time you spend on the different things you do in your day, you should include social media, phone calls, email, breaks and everything else. Once you know what the biggest time wasters are, eliminate them.
2. Schedule Time for Email and Social Media
Email, texting and social media can all waste time monumentally. You should schedule time for emailing, texting and taking or making calls. You should not respond to every email as it comes in, nor leave Twitter, Facebook or Instagram open all day, or this will waste hours.
3. Automate your Social Media Accounts
If you are a business owner that uses social media for marketing purposes, it is important to monitor your accounts, but this can be highly time-consuming. To save time, automate social media by using automation software and apps. Tools include Hootsuite, Social Oomph and Social Flow. These tools allow you to schedule social media posts in advance as well as monitor accounts with facility.
4. Limit Meetings
5. Have Virtual Meetings
When you do schedule long-distant meetings, save time and travel costs by holding virtual meetings. Use Skype or other similar programs instead of taking a long journey.
6. Set Deadlines
To push themselves to work faster, business owners should set deadlines. This will ensure that they do not waste time on unnecessary projects and get side-tracked.
7. Hire a Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistants can allow a business owner to save many hours by taking on all the chores that eat up hours that could be spent productively. Virtual assistants can aid with mundane daily tasks like email, account-keeping, scheduling meetings and social media.
8. Automate Payroll
Instead of wasting precious hours by manually working on payroll, invest in a payroll system that will handle this chore for you.
9. Keep Everything in its Place
Looking for important papers, emails, or even keys can waste a lot of time. Implement a filing system, have a place for everything so that you can find it in seconds.
10. Use Templates
As a business owner there may be sentences or even paragraphs you write over and over again but if you create a general template that you can use or adjust this will allow you to save time. Instead of starting from scratch you can amend the template and you’re good to go.
