How to save time (and money) in business

How to save time and money in business

There’s an age-old adage that time is money and it’s not wrong. While working longer hours doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be more successful, the fundamental truth is that you have to spend at least some of your day involved in productive activity – business doesn’t happen by itself! If you want to be more productive, you have to spend more time on productive activity and less on doing things that have no impact. When time is money, using your time wisely is helping you to save money in business.

Here’s how you can save precious time and money in business, increase your productivity, and improve your revenues.

Have a plan

Start every day with a plan of what you need to achieve. Have a to-do list to stop yourself from forgetting important tasks that add value. Do the important task of the day first if possible. “Important” is not the same as “urgent”.

You can use an app like Trello to keep track of tasks and projects, or an old-fashioned notepad and pen, but use something. Once you get very busy, it’s hard to keep track of tasks in your head and you run the risk of forgetting something which is vital to keeping the wheels of industry turning efficiently.

Track your time

In order to cut out wasted time, you need to know how much time you’re spending on productive, and on non-productive tasks. Do you know how much time you spend on specific tasks related to a project? If you really don’t know, then you need to track your time.

You can use an app – here are some suggestions for top time-tracking apps.

When choosing a tool to help you find wasted time and save money in business, find one which is easy to use and suits your way of working. There’s no point in tracking time to find wasted time if you find that you spend more time trying to get the tool to work for you than it will save you!

Cut out distractions

If you find yourself wasting your own valuable time by surfing the web un-necessarily, you can install an app like Cold Turkey, which will block specific websites between specific hours so you can’t get distracted by them. If you find yourself wandering on to Facebook and getting diverted by cat videos, then using a web-blocking tool will keep you on task for longer.

Noise and activity in a workplace can be very distracting. If your workplace is open-plan, then using an iPod or noise-reducing headphones can work wonders in keeping you focused on the task in hand.

Delegate

To free up your own valuable time, you should delegate what you can to others, whether these are your own staff or outside agencies. People with specialist skills will likely be able to do the task faster than you, and if you can be freed up to spend more time doing what you do best, then all the better.

And once you’ve delegated tasks, trust staff to get on with them. If you micro-manage them too much you might as well do the job yourself.

In a similar vein, tapping into others’ skills and insight can be very fruitful. If you’re struggling to do a specific task efficiently then ask those who seem to be doing it faster. They may have some tricks to show you that can speed you up and save more of your valuable time. Don’t know who to ask? The person in your company who is considered lazy yet still seems to get their workload completed could be a good bet!

Avoid wasting time in meetings

Meetings are an infamous time-suck. Or they can be if they drag on longer than necessary. You really need to keep meetings on track and get everyone back out and working as soon as possible. There’s an app for that! – check out http://www.meetimeapps.com/ and see if something like this can save you and your team members valuable time.

Be ruthless

Most of all – learn to say no to stuff you don’t need to do. Be ruthless. Your time is precious and you can’t take on tasks which someone else could do better or quicker when you have your own stuff to do.

Looking to save money in business? Speak to us about our cost reduction consultation services.

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