When you own a small business, it can be difficult to stay productive when you have so many things fighting for your attention.
How do you figure out which tasks or activities to focus on? Where should you spend most of your time without feeling overwhelmed?
As a business owner, you need to make smart decisions that will help you to stay productive so you can grow your business.
If you are spending a lot of time working on your business with little or no results, then it’s time to shake things up and do things differently.
Read on for some tips on how you can get things done in your business.
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3 Easy Ways to Stay Productive
1. Set Weekly and Monthly Goals
Goal setting is essential to building a successful business. If you aim for nothing, that’s exactly what you’ll get!
When you set goals, you have something that you are working hard to achieve. This means you are not just groping in the dark hoping things work out.
I know that when you’re juggling a lot of responsibilities, it becomes more difficult to find the time to set goals and create a plan of action.
The main benefit of setting goals is that it keeps you focused since it’s easy to get distracted when you have a lot of things to do.
Some examples of goals you can set for your business include:
- Income goals.
- Marketing and sales goals (goals for your social media, content and email marketing, increasing your email subscribers, etc ).
- Learning/self-improvement goals (you can pick a topic or an area of business you need to learn about every week or month. For example, learning how to use Canva or build landing pages, or learning about email marketing ).
Don’t forget some basic rules of goal setting like setting measurable and realistic goals. You also want to set short-term and long-term goals.
Write your goals down and create an action plan. This will help you to stay focused and get rid of distractions.
Related post:
9 Essential Tips to Grow Your Business
Recommended resources:
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
2. Time Management
Time management is one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face. One of the reasons people become stuck is because they indulge in practices/habits that sabotage their growth.
It’s difficult to be productive if you spend a good chunk of your day or week on time-wasting activities. How do you spend your days? What activities or tasks take up most of your time?
Do you spend a lot of time doing busy work without actually accomplishing anything? Unfortunately, being busy is easier than getting things done.
If you really want to be productive in your business, then you have to assess how you are spending your time, and what you can do to practice effective time management.
I like to read and consume a lot of information. For real, it’s easier to keep reading other people’s blog posts and success stories instead of taking action.
It’s easy to convince yourself that you need one more tip, idea, or hack before you can take action. The truth is, we are just procrastinating and putting off tasks we know we should be working on.
Here are some questions to ask if you are struggling with time management:
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- Do you stay on top of your work or are you drowning?
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- Which activities take up most of your day?
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- Do you procrastinate and delay taking action?
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- Do you often wish you had more hours or time to complete tasks?
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- How much time do you spend on activities that align with your goals?
- Do you often ask yourself “where did the time go?”
If you answered yes to most of these questions, then you may have a poor time management problem. So what can you do to become more productive? I have a few tips for you!
Time Management Tips For Busy Entrepreneurs
- Prioritize your work. Do the most important things first. Don’t confuse important with urgent.
- Focus on tasks with the highest return on investment (marketing, creating content, promoting content, etc).
- Schedule your tasks throughout the day. Have a set time for checking and replying to emails, marketing, making phone calls, networking, etc.
- Take short breaks. This is one of the things that really helps me to stay productive. It’s hard to keep working for hours on end. Give yourself short breaks to refresh and reset. Short breaks don’t mean binge-watching Netflix…uh-huh or scrolling through your social media feed for hours on end.
- Unplug and disconnect from the real world. Get rid of distractions. Sometimes a girl gotta do what a girl gotta do. The real world will still be waiting for you once you complete your tasks.
- Create systems and processes for your business. Psst…my Systems for Business Success will help you make the most of your time and boost your productivity. Check it out below.
Recommended posts:
Time Management Tips for Entrepreneurs That Actually Work
15 Time Management Tips for Achieving Your Goals
Recommended resource:
3. Focus on your current stage
Many of us have big and lofty goals for our business. Some of us are striving for world domination while others would be happy with making six figures a year.
It’s important to have big goals and long-term goals, but try not to be too ambitious or spread yourself too thin.
Running a business is hard. There’s no need to make it even harder.
While it’s a good idea to have a growth and abundance mindset, some business owners take it too far and set unrealistic goals for themselves. This can lead to stress and burnout.
Building a successful business takes time. You have to be patient and stay the course. It’s a marathon and not a sprint.
Every business goes through different stages. What you should focus on depends on the stage your business is at. In this post The 4 Stages of Every Small Business, I broke down the four stages and what a business owner should focus on at each stage. Go and check it out!
A business in the startup stage should focus on different things from a business in the growth stage.
What stage is your business? Are you focusing on the right things to grow your business? Focusing on the right tasks will help you to become productive and reach your goals faster.
Recommended resource:
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
It’s possible to be a more productive business owner. The key is to be intentional. Identify the time sucks in your business, and focus on the important tasks and activities that will help you to grow your business faster.
Are you in the startup or idea stage of your business? Do you need help creating a plan for your business? Check out the Startup Business Planner to help you jump-start your launch.
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