Time Saving Tips for Small Businesses

By Guest Blogger Trevor Ginn

Being short of time is a job hazard of running a business. Every day there will be ten equally important tasks demanding attention and in many cases, there will be no opportunity to delegate the work. It is therefore important to think about how to use time effectively and consider strategies for cutting down on time consuming, but unnecessary activities. Here are some tips.

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Avoid unnecessary meetings. Meetings are hugely time consuming and often not that productive. Try and get things agreed via email or phone if at all possible and only have a face to face meeting if absolutely necessary. If a meeting really is required, clearly arrange in advance what needs to be achieved and create an agenda. Conducting meetings standing up is another classic way of encouraging quick meetings!

Put your phone to voicemail. In the current economic climate, sales people have gone into overdrive and business owners are being swamped with unwanted sales calls. Even if the caller can be quickly dispatched, each call is still highly disruptive and in many cases really rather annoying. One strategy to avoid unwanted calls is to divert all calls to voicemail. If the call is important the caller will leave a message and can be phoned back. Thankfully, most sales people will not leave a message.

Get more organised. It takes much more time to correct mistakes than to get it right first time. A missed appointment is not only embarrassing and stressful but also takes time to fix. Be disciplined and always write down appointments. Many people also find keeping lists to be a great help. A popular personal productivity system based around lists is Getting Things Done created by David Allen.

Become proactive. Making arrangements can involve a time consuming game of email tennis to fix a time and a place. By proactively suggesting solutions instead of asking questions, this arrangement time can be drastically reduced. Instead of saying ‘when can you make it’, say ‘how about meeting 10a.m. on Thursday, failing that, Friday at the same time’. It is a good idea to give a list of alternatives.

Be assertive. Having to chase a supplier is time consuming and mentally taxing. Being passive unfortunately does not get the job done. By being the kind of customer that is assertive about efficient, quick delivery will increase the chances of things getting done on time. Remember it is the squeaky wheel that gets oiled.

Automate and batch processes. In every business there is room for automating processes, saving time and effort. A good example is automating the payment of regular invoices via a bank direct debit or standing order. Time can also be saved by batching together similar tasks and doing them all at once.

Avoid distractions. The working day is full of distractions and after each interruption it takes several minutes to get back to the main task at hand. Cutting down on distractions is therefore a quick win in terms of improving productivity. Here are strategies for avoiding distractions:

Turn off email auto receive. It is very tempting to read emails as they arrive which is a great waste of time. It is easy to think that not being online at all times will mean that something important will be missed, but in reality very few things can’t wait a few hours. Turn off email auto receive and try to only down emails a few times each day so there you are in control of you email and not the other way around

Change your homepage. Many people set the homepage on their browser to their favourite news site and it is terribly tempting to spend the first 20 minutes of each day catching up on the latest celebrity gossip. Setting the homepage to a neutral, but useful site like Google helps to get the day off to a productive start.
Avoid social media. Social media services such as Twitter are great fun but are the thief of time. Treat social media like email and try and restrict viewing to once or twice a day.

Unsubscribe to email newsletters. Most email newsletters are only slightly better than spam and never get read. They clog up email inboxes and take time to delete. Unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe!

Trevor Ginn is managing director at Hello Baby and blogs at eBay, eCommerce, Life