As a small business owner, you don’t have any time to waste. There are a million things on your mind and a million things to do, and simply not enough hours in the day. But you can relieve some of that pressure, increase efficiency, and maybe save some time by implementing some key time management techniques.
Following are some admin ideas and tips that will help you save time and increase your small business management efficiency:
1. Always Have a Daily Plan
While living by a plan may not exactly seem glamorous as a small business owner, it is one of the best ways to be efficient and stay on top of everything. It is recommended that you start out your day listing down your goals and plan accordingly, and then prioritize those goals. You won’t find yourself wasting as much time when you have got things down on a list with a specific plan to follow.
2. Delegate
Admitting that they cannot do everything themselves is probably one of the most difficult things for small business owners. While it may be a bit scary to give up control and rely on others, it is a necessity. Learning what and how to delegate can be a great time-saver and helps your business to be relatively more efficient. And delegating does not only work for tasks, when it comes to putting together strategies and answering some of the important questions you face as a small business owner, you can ask other people to help you out.
3. Prioritize
There are lots of tasks that go into managing a small business, but not all of them require the same amount or level of attention. Every business is difficult and focuses on different areas. For instance, a brick and mortar store may decide to prioritize sales and advertising strategies while an online business should probably expect to prioritize social media use and article writing since the owner has to gain website traffic as well as build credibility. What’s important is that the priorities of a business be detailed out and clear to everyone involved.
The key to successful prioritization is being able to differentiate between tasks that are urgent and non-urgent as well as important and non-important tasks. The tasks that have a tangible impact on your business’ success are important tasks, while urgent tasks are those that have an impending, firm deadline, with consequences if that deadline is missed.
4. Automate
Technology is an amazing thing. Small business owners these days are extremely lucky that they live in an era in which modern technologies and innovations that can help them manage their businesses more easily are popping up on a regular basis. Automation of certain tasks can help drastically reduce the time and effort required. For example, by switching to online scheduling, you can reduce the time it takes you to schedule your staff by up to 80%. Not to mention, you also get rid of your pen-and-paper schedules and spreadsheets. Nowadays, there’s probably a software solution that can help you simplify just about any business process, from running your payroll to posting on social media.
5. Outsource
The idea behind outsourcing is pretty simple. Take a task that you don’t have time to do or don’t want to do and pay someone else to do it. Outsourcing is an excellent way to offload some of your administrative burden and often have the task carried out by a professional more quickly and proficiently as opposed to handling it in-house. While it’s not always quite as straightforward or simple as that, outsourcing is still one of the best ways to reduce your workload and free up valuable time which you can then spend elsewhere. To proceed, first identify what business tasks you want to outsource. Then, start to identify potential agencies, contractors, or service providers to take on the work you would like to outsource.
6. Ease Up on the Meetings
If you schedule a lot of meetings with your staff, then ask yourself how important they really are. The time spent preparing for the meeting, holding it, and then responding to various questions afterwards can add up fast. That’s why it is recommended that you only stick to important meetings.
While dealing with administrative burden can be quite challenging, regardless of whether or not it’s a small business, it is by no means an impossible challenge. A few small changes in how you think about and tackle your small business administrative tasks can make a huge difference to your efficiency and productivity, leaving you more energy and time to focus on growing and improving your business.