Running a business is rarely easy. For many business owners, there are always a multitude of plates to spin, and in this bitcoin era it seems that there are more plates than ever! Advertising, marketing, sales, recruitment, HR, accounting, technology, networking – the list goes on. And contending with all that can seriously affect your productivity, which holds back the most important part of your business – growing it! However, there are several tips that you can use that will improve your productivity when running your SME.
Improving Your Planning
Starting your day with a plan is one of the best things you can do. Create a schedule of what you should be doing throughout the day and tick it off the list when it gets done. This will keep your focused on what is important and will help you delegate (if possible!). Following a schedule will also create a sense of accomplishment when you finish your tasks, making you happier, motivated, and more productive every day.
When it’s finally time to clock off comes around, take a look at what you have achieved and then start making plans for the next day. This ensures that you are as productive as possible when you wake up and can hit the ground running on the new business day.
Set SMART Goals
Every business should have a set of defined goals. When you set goals for yourself, make sure it’s SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed). If you set unrealistic or poorly-defined goals for you or your employees, you’re setting up for failure. When goals are missed, it’s a recipe for demotivation, which kills productivity stone dead. However, by setting more realistic and achievable goals you can avoid this issue, engaging your team and encouraging them to focus. This will enable everyone to be more productive every day.
Reducing Distractions
One of the biggest things stopping productivity is distractions. They can come from anywhere, such as loud noises outside, or getting sucked in to absent-mindedly scrolling through Instagram for the 15th time in a day.
However, there are ways to change this and get you back to being as productive as possible. First, make a list of everything that distracts you during the day. You can then identify what’s eating into your time, and remove it from your workday.
Take Advantage of Productivity Tools
With more and more productivity apps coming out, there are a legion of options when it comes to increasing your productivity and being more efficient every day.
Productivity tools have already revolutionised the processes of many businesses. This is especially the case in the realm of project management. This is because there are various tools available for prioritising certain tasks, collaborating with your dedicated team of experts on schedules, and easily finding all you need to know about the latest progress on a project, in real time.
Even free tools provide great benefits. For example, Google Docs is a brilliant tool for working on a document. It removes the need for constant need to save documents and also can be worked on by multiple people at the same time – so no more endlessly sending files back and forth via email. You can also access it from any linked device, so if you get a brainwave outside business hours, you don’t need to head back to the office in the dead of night!
Expanding on this point, by moving over to more cloud-based software you and your employees can work on projects both from home and the office 24/7. This is fantastic for productivity and getting things done whenever you want, especially in the new era of hybrid working.
