Getting more things done in less time is the only way to increase the productivity of your small business if your business is made up of just you or if you are its main asset (as is often the case).
In this post we are just going to talk about this. How to organize your work so that you save time by giving you some specific advice so that you can apply it in your day to day life.
A real and effective method to increase the productivity of your small business
There are many methods and people who promise us miraculous results in exchange for nothing, but as the Spanish proverb says, “What comes easy, goes easy . ”
Here you will not find this, since, in the end, in life it is up to each one (of you in this case) to apply what one learns.
If you seek to attend to all the needs of your company, always expecting the best result in each and every one of them, it is possible (probably, rather) that you end up overwhelmed and stressed, starting to put things aside and limiting your productivity.
The brain is not for storage
We have the idea that our brain is a large warehouse where we can store information such as dates, names and tasks to be carried out, being able to always go to it and that it will not be deleted .
Instead, this is not so. Your brain is not a warehouse (if it were, you wouldn’t have things “on the tip of your tongue”)
And what happens to you, happens to everyone because we are designed to create ideas, not store them. If we are overly confident in our ability to store, we are doomed to fail.
Above all, when today there are tools to store the ideas that matter to us, such as agendas and lists, on paper or on the Internet, that help us on a day-to-day basis.
Have a focused mind to increase the productivity of your small business
Trying to do several things at the same time causes our productivity to drop , so it is important to execute each of the tasks one by one. This means suppressing all distractions that can distract you from the goal of fulfilling it in the time you have set for yourself.
The goal should be to create a mind focused on the projects you want to finish without getting lost along the way and wasting your time.
Also Read: What Is Smart Working? Keys To Implementing It In Your Company
Establish dedicated times
To improve productivity we must set times and meet them. If you decide to work a couple of hours on a task at work or in your personal life, you must focus and understand that everything outside is a distraction, treating those hours as if they were sacred.
To improve at this point, it is interesting to work with blocks of time (the one that best fits your way of working), always considering that you must adapt to the way of working that best comes to mind.
If you want to delve into this topic, (along with many more tips to get the most out of your time) you can do so in my Growing Businesses training program designed so that people like you can delve into the importance of knowing how to manage schedules for microenterprises.
1. Collect
Collect in a physical or online inbox that serves to write down your tasks, your ideas and obligations to be able to attend to them better and have what you have to do in sight (without leaving anything out).
It can be in paper format , such as agendas, calendars or take advantage of technology such as computers and mobile phones to always carry it with you. Some of these apps are OneNote, Google Keep, ToDo …
This way, you can always go to the information in your inbox, which should be constantly evolving .
Although at first it is difficult to get used to these methods, in the long run they will help you to have the necessary information written down, thus preventing it from being lost.
2. Process
Process the above information applying the 2-minute rule. The notes that need less than 2 minutes of action must be fulfilled immediately , because not needing much time will save us from postponing it to another time.
Those that need more time should enter a list of actions , because doing them immediately can lose focus on the task we were doing.
3. Organize
Organize the list of actions of more than 2 minutes , so that they are not just orders without a clear meaning. You can organize them according to the criteria that you consider most appropriate, the most common being:
Projects , the actions have to be grouped if they are part of the same common project , for example grouping everything related to sales, customers, supplies…
Time , the actions that share a deadline, can be the end of a week, the month or the term of an application.
Context , the actions that are linked to a similar context such as what is related to daily tasks, what is related to a specific client or a specific supplier.
4. Evaluate
Evaluate (at least) once a week the actions completed and those that need more actions, to see if they are helping you meet those goals you are striving for.
If some tasks are complicated or need more attention, these sessions help to focus in a different way .
5. Do
This is where you have to take action, since you already have an inbox prepared and it only depends on you properly applying the previous tips. Always remembering that it is your own work that will make your inbox succeed.
Also Read: Make Your Business More Productive With The Right Furniture