Work Your Small Business Smarter Not Harder

Yesterday I talked about how to stay motivated when you’re working on your small business, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Today I want to share a few tips I’ve heard and learned from through the years to help work your business smarter not harder.

Sometimes we do things and we don’t even know why we’re doing them, yet we keep doing them over and over, and we never get any where. I know you’ve heard this expression, but it makes me think every time I hear it. The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

Here are a few things that have helped me work smarter through the years:

• If you don’t like the results you’re getting, change things up a bit. Ask yourself why you’re spending a fortune month after month on that full page phone book listing when most of your customers say they found you by looking you up online, or through word of mouth.
• Think about when you’re most productive, and spend that time working on your business whenever possible. For me, my most productive time is late in the evening. I’m a night owl. In the morning I can sit and stare at my computer screen for an hour, and no ideas will come. At night my brain is overflowing with ideas, so that’s when I get most of my work done. When I don’t get all those ideas on paper, sometimes I have a hard time falling asleep at night.
• Use your least productive business time (for me it’s morning), to do simple tasks related to your business like book keeping, filing, making phone calls, things you can do without being totally focused.
• Keep your workspace organized. I can get so much more work done when my workspace is organized. When things start to get cluttered my focus goes out the window.
• Hire people to do the jobs you don’t like, or jobs that are not your area of expertise. You don’t have to hire a full time employee. You can hire a virtual assistant, an independent contractor, or freelance professional to help you get those tasks complete that you struggle with yourself.

How do you work your small business smarter?

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