As the popular anecdote says, time is money. This is particularly accurate in business where money-making activities can make or break your bottom line. Regardless of your current business practices, chances are that you could be doing something to save time and improve your productivity. Consider these five common ways to save time in your regular course of business.
1. Automate Your Scheduling
Most people waste hours upon hours each week communicating about lunches, business meetings, and playing phone tag with voicemails. You can eliminate all of this wasted time by automating your scheduling. Look into online services that allow your colleagues to access a customized scheduler and pick times for lunches, meetings, and even phone calls. This frees you (or your assistant) up to do more meaningful work.
2. Block Your Time
Some people like to block their time by the hour so that they have designated time for email, phone calls, paperwork, etc. Others like to block their time by day so that they have a specific area to focus on each morning. Whatever way works for you, blocking your time will allow you to be more productive. This will save time as well as keep your business more organized.
3. Have An External System
Most businesses that are run efficiently on a daily basis can lose loads of time when they realize that something is wrong or out of date with their business systems or products. Keeping an eye on these issues can be expensive and take a lot of time, even if it doesn’t seem like it year-round. You can fix this problem by outsourcing these large-scale jobs to external companies and entities like Streamline Circuits. Allowing another entity to stay up to date with the checks and balances lets you focus on your area of expertise.
4. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
If someone else could be doing it then someone else should be doing it. If you are in charge of a business then chances are that you have enough to do that no one else can easily take off your plate. The more you delegate to others, whether it be to staff members or external service providers, the more time you can spend actually running your business.
5. Skip The Meetings
Meetings should be short, sweet, and to the point. Every single one should end with verified progress and action steps. If your meetings don’t function this way then scrap them and update your team with emails instead. This is possibly one of the biggest time savers you can implement in your business.
When running a business, saving time is a crucial part of keeping your productivity steady and profit margin high. Revisit these ideas frequently and see how you can improve your business systems and practices on a regular basis.
