Make Everyday Productive: 10 Tips For Business Owners

Twenty-nine million businesses operate with less than 500 employees in the United States, and this number represents 99.7% of all US businesses.

In Deloitte (2021), small and medium-sized US businesses (SMBs) are tagged as innovators, job creators, and significant economic growth drivers. Having such feathers on businesses’ cap, the productivity rate of both employees and their business owners and leaders need to be the same equally so business growth can be achieved and put on an all-time high.

Business owners can improve their levels of productivity and efficiency using these viable strategies:

Skip multi-tasking.

While many would argue that this is a strength, studies have shown that it can be a weakness. Based on the findings of Inserm (2010), they revealed that multitaskers tend to work slower and less efficiently since simultaneous activities often require splitting brain functions into two.

Moreover, the human mind is not meant to multitask, and that it can even have long-term effects on the brain’s cognitive function. Therefore, instead of hitting two birds with one stone, it is better to finish one and then onto another.

You can also make room for mental health breaks in between. 

Sleep early and start early.

Mornings are usually busy for business. People who slept through their appointments or deferred for the next day come by early in the morning. Supplies and other deliveries are also often received at this time of day.

Waking up early will allow you to monitor these activities. Make this your routine and stay true to it every day. Early risers have a full sweep of time for all the plotted duties and responsibilities. You will be surprised that you can already call it a day even before you know it.

Do mental conditioning.

When we lose our mood, we lose focus and willpower. Veer away from negative vibes so you can protect your peace of mind.

Mental conditioning works; this is the technique wherein you train your mind to modify thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs to accept thinking patterns. You want to do this to allow for positive thinking, which can potentially optimize your performance.

Strive for precise, accurate, and logical thoughts as these can assist you in becoming solution-oriented rather than reactive.

List everything down and prioritize. 

Keeping a list of things you need to do, monitor, or receive helps you follow all your activities. In this way, you can assure that you are in complete control of your transactions and the day’s activities.

By prioritizing tasks, you can determine those that need immediate attention, which can be done later or delegated to others. 

Lean onto productivity tools.

These tools are technology’s gift to humanity. They simplify collaboration and streamline processes to save time and money. Productivity apps ensure that stocks, workload, payroll, and time are allocated fairly.

When you use tools like Asana, Trello, One Note effectively, you can make it easy for everyone in your business to do their jobs. 

Follow a systematic approach in communicating. 

A simple way to do this is to make a list of all the people or organizations you need to contact, whether email, text, or calls, for the day. Schedule a period when you can sit down and call each of them. 

Go paperless.

Try to minimize the amount of paper that you use. Not only will this reduce carbon emissions but also your business’ overheads. For memorandums and employee notices, make use of Slack or Hipchat.

For contracts, payslips, and even receipts, turn to invoice software. Make fun experiments on various applications so you can determine which is suitable for your team.

Appoint a time for specific tasks.

Accept all meetings or pitches only within your prescribed schedule. Request that all your meetings be held and scheduled only between 9 am to 12 noon.

Make a special request with all your suppliers that you prefer receiving items only in the morning. In this way, you can anticipate and forecast how the coming days will be like.

Having a baseline like so can enable you to make informed decisions on short-notice personal or business-related activities.

Reward the entire team.

Celebrate not just your productivity but also that of your team. Not always talking financially, but you must, in some way, reward yourself and your team.

Dress-down days, free pizza for lunch or an all-you-can-drink bar can be simple but meaningful ways to praise your team for their hard work. This can lead to even higher productivity and greater loyalty.  

Never micromanage.

The biggest threat to productivity is micromanaging. Micromanaging just makes employees feel overworked and ineffective simply for forging a stressful and uncomfortable work atmosphere.

As a business owner, you must display trust and strong communication skills among your employees, especially when delegating tasks.

If you can educate employees about how you wish a specific job to be done, you can let them progress with it on their own while working on other issues. Micromanagement tends to pierce employee morale and lower job satisfaction and overall productivity.