These 9 Small Business Productivity Hacks Will Boost Your Revenue in 2019

Small Business Productivity Hacks Will Boost Your Income…

Owning a small business is no walk in the park.

Most small business owners work twice as much as regular employees.

In the U.S., 50% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years. Additionally, 70% fail by year 10.

• Read: How to Implement a Lean Business Approach

It’s hard to compete with big companies. They have lower prices and established ways of doing successful business.

As a small business owner, the odds are stacked against you.

Don’t let your business fail because of mismanaged time and poor productivity.

Check Out These 9 Business-Saving Productivity Hacks!

1. Put the Phone Away Unless It’s for Business

Perhaps the biggest time-waster ever invented is the smartphone. People go from using the toilet for five minutes to 30 minutes if they have their phone with them. But with games, social media, and funny cat videos, who can blame them?

However, if used appropriately, the smartphone can be an incredibly useful tool for business productivity. However, owners must exercise discipline with the smartphone as it can quickly become a weapon of mass unproductivity.

As a business owner, commit to staying off time-consuming websites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These websites have a blackhole effect and can lead to wasting large portions of the day.

If you use these types of websites for business-related tasks, which is not uncommon, make sure you keep your use of them work-related. Save the funny cat videos for after work.

2. Don’t Be Perfectionistic

Another great productivity hack to implement into your business is living by the motto, “It’s not perfect, and that’s perfect.”

This may seem anti-intuitive because, as a business owner, you should want everything to be exactly right. However, over-analyzing and spending too much time on projects to make them absolutely perfect is extremely inefficient.

• Must See: 10 Ways to Ensure Your Employees Feel Appreciated

This isn’t to say you should drop your standards, just don’t waste time being a perfectionist.

This will also save you unnecessary strife with your employees. Perfectionistic bosses tend to be very difficult to please. This can lead to employees becoming demotivated or even resentful.

3. Make a List of Goals for Each Day

In order to stay focused, one of the best productivity hacks is making a list of goals for each day. This can be done first thing in the morning or at the end of the day (for the next day).

Make your goals ambitious but realistic. If it applies, share your goals with your employees or even print them out for them.

If you are really on top of it, you can make goal lists for individual employees. There are apps for your smartphone that help you assign and manage tasks, making communication much easier.

For more info, check out this free app!

However, you make your list, post it in a place where you will see it constantly. Keep yourself reminded of what you want to be accomplished for the day.

To generate more productivity, create a reward system for employees that complete their tasks each day.

4. Prioritize

Having a list of goals is great, but to make the most out of this productivity hack, you must prioritize.

We are most productive at the beginning of the day. Towards the end of our shift, we are tired and are thinking about going home.

Prioritize your tasks for the day from most important to least important. Usually, this involves getting the big stuff done first while you have the most energy and motivation.

Prioritizing means making a schedule. This schedule doesn’t have to be super in depth, but having a deadline gives us the extra spark to be more productive. If applicable to your employees, give them timelines, as well.

5. Optimize Employee Efficiency

Optimizing employee efficiency will cost time and effort up front, but will be well worth it in the long run.

The better your employees understand their roles, the more productive they will be. This means taking the time to train them well.

Every person learns differently, make sure you know how to get through to each employee and that they know it’s okay to ask questions. If they are second-guessing themselves all day, they won’t get much done.

6. Clean Up Your Email

One of the things most business owners complain about is how much time they spend responding to emails.

Something that makes this process longer and even more agonizing is weeding through all the garbage emails. These may have been email lists you subscribed to in the past or advertising companies that got your address somewhere else.

Either way, they’re cluttering up your inbox and they’ve got to go. Go through your inbox and mark everything you don’t want to see as spam or unsubscribe to them. This will take time initially but will save you time and frustration in the future.

7. Keep Meetings Short and Concise

Meetings can be a big time-suck for businesses, particularly businesses with several employees.

All too often, these meetings get off topic or too many people decide they need to share their opinion. Sharing is good, but too much of it can be an unnecessary waste of time.

If meetings are necessary, make a list of what needs to be covered and set a deadline. If you have 10 employees in a meeting that goes 15 minutes too long, that’s 150 minutes of manpower wasted.

It helps to have meetings where people are not sitting down.

8. Focus on One Task at a Time

One of the best productivity hacks is focusing on one task at a time.

While some of the most successful people are fantastic multi-taskers, not everyone has that ability.

It is much more efficient to put all of your attention on one task than strung out over several.

Divided attention creates room for errors and poor performance. That’s why people ask for your “undivided” attention for important discussions.

9. Track Performance

One of the best productivity hacks is tracking performance.

Knowing how your business performs week after week can help you spot trends of what is working and what isn’t. Keeping records of what was done and how it rated is one of the wisest things business owners can do.

Tracking performance allows you to hone in and refine good business tactics. It also helps prevent you from making the same mistakes.

Business, Home, and Lifestyle Productivity Hacks

Now that you’ve seen some of the best productivity hacks for small businesses, it’s time to implement them into your business! However, there are so many more things you can do to make your business successful!

If you’re looking for easy-to-use tips and hacks for other areas of your life, check out our blog!