Running a small business requires wearing many hats. From managing employees to keeping customers happy, there’s always something new demanding a business owner’s time and attention. With so many responsibilities competing for your focus, it’s crucial to make the most of each minute. Time management tools and techniques allow entrepreneurs to work smarter, not harder. This leads to increased productivity and profitability.
Below, we’ll explore six great resources to help small business owners organize their schedules. With the free paystub generator and other handy tools, you can confidently tackle each day, knowing tasks are prioritized appropriately. Let’s dive into these game-changing solutions!
Calendar Apps
A calendar, at its core, embodies simplicity but wields immense power. It’s akin to a trusted companion in your journey toward optimal time management. Picture yourself as a knight, and your calendar, a formidable weapon in your arsenal. Among many warriors, some still hold a fondness for old-school, tangible paper planners. Yet, it’s hard to deny that their digital counterparts hold sway, boasting an array of flexibility and attributes that can leave one astounded. In this digital age, cloud-based apps emerge as a beacon of convenience. Imagine having access to your meticulously planned schedule, no matter the corner of the world you find yourself in. It’s as if your calendar flies by your side, always ready to assist. Gentle reminders ensure you’re always on top of your game, never missing a beat. Some popular options include:
- Google Calendar: This free platform comes with robust options for creating and sharing calendars. You can set up multiple calendars for personal and business activities. The app integrates nicely with Gmail, allowing you to add events and appointments straight from email.
- Outlook Calendar: Along with email, the Outlook app includes a calendar with customizable views and reminder notifications. Outlook offers easy integration with other Microsoft productivity apps like Teams, Word, and Excel.
- Cozi: This family-centric option allows you to share calendars with family members or your entire team. Color coding and To-do lists help everyone stay on the same page. The app sends alerts when new items are added or changed.
Project Management Programs
Juggling multiple projects simultaneously is one of the biggest time management challenges for entrepreneurs. The right project organizer makes it easier to handle the demands of each job. Look for a platform allowing you to:
- Create project plans with tasks, due dates, and assignments
- Prioritize and categorize tasks
- Set reminders for deadlines
- Collaborate with team members
Well-known services like Asana, Trello, and Basecamp offer these features with pricing scaled for small business budgets. Play around with free trials to find one suiting your workflow.
Time Tracking Software
Ever pondered about where your work hours vanish? Time-tracking applications, a modern marvel, offer keen insights into your daily time expenditure. These savvy tools compartmentalize your activities, revealing time-hogging tasks at a glance. An added feature permits tasks to be linked with specific projects, a boon when estimating budgets or invoicing clients. Many such tools are in vogue, with Harvest, Timely, and TSheets leading the parade.
Diving deeper into the work realm, it’s not unusual for our sense of time to be somewhat skewed. What feels like a brief task might indeed be a time gobbler, stealthily nibbling away at your day. Here, time-tracking applications strut onto the stage. Like a spotlight, they illuminate your day’s activities, cataloging each into neat little buckets. This visibility allows you to discern where most of your time meanders off, providing a chance to adjust sails and steer towards efficiency.
Virtual Assistants
Grunt work, you know, those dull administrative tasks or data stuff, consider assigning them to a virtual assistant service. With a quick search on the WWW, you’ll find a vast array of choices. These services charge by the hour with rates ranging from as low as 5 smackers to as high as 50, depending on the assistant’s experience and skillset.
Consider companies from the Philippines, like OnlineJobs.ph, they’ve got a solid reputation for providing excellent services that won’t make your wallet cry. Imagine saying goodbye to the soul-sucking tasks like managing your calendar, spearheading email marketing, entering data into the system, undertaking research, scheduling appointments, and so on. Sounds like a dream, right?
The beauty of it all is this – all these mundane tasks that you’d otherwise spend hours on will now be taken care of by someone else. And the best part? All this can be done for just a few dollars per hour. Think about it. Why spend valuable time on tasks that someone else can handle? It’s a no-brainer!
Focus Apps
Emails, messaging, notifications, alerts – a constant barrage of pings and prompts makes it hard to stay focused. Enter focus apps and modes like Forest, Freedom, and Do Not Disturb.
Forest gamifies productivity, letting you grow a virtual tree when you refrain from using your phone during a set time period. Freedom blocks distracting sites and apps during sessions when you need to concentrate.
Do Not Disturb silences non-urgent notifications on iOS and Android devices. Take back control with tools, limit distractions, and discourage multitasking. Single-tasking is the most productive approach.
Automation Tools
Work smarter by automating routine tasks. For example:
Use Zapier to connect web apps like Gmail, Slack, and MailChimp. Build workflows to automatically save email attachments to Dropbox, send new Trello tasks as Slack messages, add Gmail contacts to Mailchimp lists, etc.
IFTTT (If This Then That) works similarly, allowing you to automate web services with conditional statements. Popular uses are saving Instagram photos to Dropbox, logging Facebook posts to a Google Sheet, auto-sending new tweets to Buffer, and more.
Tools like Integromat and Microsoft PowerAutomate offer drag-and-drop interfaces for building automated processes.
Eliminating redundant manual processes gives you more time to grow your business.
Final Thoughts
Running a successful venture requires more than passion and persistence. It also demands working intelligently through careful time management. Use the solutions above to control your calendar, focus your efforts, and boost productivity.
Try tools like Google Calendar, Trello, and Freedom to streamline scheduling projects and avoid distractions. Automating rote tasks also saves tons of time better spent directly growing your company. Don’t let the day control you – seize control of your hours with robust planning and organization.
This story originally appeared on CareerAttraction