These ten hacks will help you get your time back
Optimizing your often limited work time is essential for success. Reality doesn’t make it easy, though. Many executives and workers face challenges maximizing their time.
Does that sound familiar? Don’t worry if it does because we’ve collected ten business process hacks that will save you time (and money). Delegating and outsourcing some daily tasks to a reputable, valuable Business Process Outsourcing company, for example, will cut down on wasted hours spent on countless administrative tasks. Here are ten simple hacks to free your time for improved productivity.
1. Organize your desk and schedule
Your journey to saving time can start by simply organizing your desk. Creating order in your working space helps create order in your day. Invest in a filing tray system that allows you to prioritize and organize your incoming documents.
Creating a to-do list for the day is always a great hack. It allows you to see exactly what’s in front of you and stay focused. Crossing off each task as you complete it will also give you a feeling of accomplishment and momentum.
2. Start with your most important tasks
Maximize your time by starting with the most important tasks. Prioritize what needs to be done first. This way, you’ll spend energy on the most critical jobs before your mind starts to tire.
The first task you do doesn’t have to be the most urgent, either. As Stephen Richards Covey, American author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” educator, businessman, and keynote speaker, famously said, it’s the “not urgent and important tasks that lead to business success.”
Important tasks contribute to your mission, values, and high priority goals. They usually require more initiative and proactivity than urgent matters which spur reactivity. Important tasks include planning, learning, marketing, skills development, and building relationships.
3. Create a realistic schedule
While using a schedule is highly important, it’s also necessary to make it realistic. An unrealistic task set can be counterproductive and overwhelm you. Eventually, you won’t produce good work if you’re rushing and you’ll burn yourself out if you overload your schedule. Also, don’t let meetings overwhelm you; consider having at least one meeting-free day per week and don’t schedule several back-to-back meetings during the day.
4. Take short breaks
Optimizing your time also includes taking time to do nothing at all. Taking, short breaks for a few minutes every hour saves you unnecessary burnout that could compromise your productivity. You can take a short break to stand or walk around the building. Whatever you do, ensure that it refreshes you to work through the next hour.
5. Optimize your downtime
Downtime will pop up occasionally. You can optimize it by taking care of a personal task or brainstorming profitable ideas.
Having a bit of downtime every day is also essential to productivity. You’re a human, not a machine, and can’t be expected to bore through tasks like a drill for hours without a break. Downtime doesn’t have to be mindless though – you can do other productive, non-work-related tasks. Just make sure that you’re not taking too much time to do non-work-related things every day.
6. Delegate
Have you ever sat down and figured out what you are actually best at? Take time to evaluate your daily activities to discover those another person can perform better and faster. Additionally, try evaluating how many of these activities are worth your time at your current level. This way, you will be better placed to know what to delegate and what to retain.
Let’s assume your business is increasing and needs to hire more help, but you don’t have an HR department. Would you spend your working time interviewing candidates and pouring over resumes? Your time would probably be better spent letting someone else weed out the initial applicants until there are workers worth considering.
Another way to delegate tasks is with a competent virtual assistant (VA). A VA can help with myriad tasks such as data entry, online research, and marketing. These assistants can work effectively via email and other online communication/collaboration tools.
7. Leverage technology
Leveraging technology through automation is another way of saving and maximizing your time. You can use automation technologies to pay your bills and market your products. Slack is a good automation technology for asynchronous collaboration around key projects because it supports a more agile work approach, accelerating project progress. The tool lets you swiftly switch between projects to see dialogs and other related documents.
8. Manage your time on social media
Unless your business focuses on social networking, you should restrict social media interactions during your day. The reason is that social media distraction is a leading time thief and productivity enemy in the modern workplace. Avoiding social media helps you focus on what really matters for the day.
Social media can also detract from your focus on business tasks and divert it to personal opinions on what you see on your feeds. It can put you in an unproductive mindset and even create negative emotions that steal your focus and put you in a potentially bad mood. If you must check social media, designate a couple of times a day with time limits and re-direct your focus back to work once you’re done.
9. Prepare for the unexpected
Unexpected, time-wasting distractions can happen even under ideal circumstances. Therefore, prepare for these events to avoid unnecessary time loss. Leave sufficient gaps between planned meetings and tasks to accommodate unexpected delays or additional workloads. Such preparations enable you to deal with unforeseen events by making minor adjustments instead of rescheduling or canceling entire events and meetings.
10. Outsource
Finally, a fantastic way to save time is by outsourcing tasks. Collaborating with a valued BPO firm has several benefits for your business. Some of the advantages your company might enjoy include:
- Delegated tasks will be done fast and satisfactorily because the outsourcing agency needs to build trust with its clients.
- You will learn how to work in trust with a value-adding organization.
- Your business can eliminate inherent weaknesses and tap into a wider pool of strengths available in a BPO company’s talent pool.
- Tasks will be placed into the hands of experts with experience and knowledge of the work.
- Higher outputs from an agency that employs dedicated experts.
Save time with Doxa today
Managing your business’s time effectively will keep it thriving. A business can do very little with its resources if it can’t manage its time productively. Unfortunately, many modern business executives still face time management challenges that erode their productivity. Despite the numerous challenges, amazing solutions are available.
At Doxa, we help small and mid-sized businesses free up time to maximize productivity. We offer white-glove service to help you boost profits, improve processes, scale efficiently, and maintain control. We align our solutions with your unique needs to offer you global competitiveness.
Doxa is your X-factor in outsourcing borderless talent. Contact our team today for a free 20-minute consultation to evaluate your needs.
