When people start their own business they often think it’s going to be all money earned and no more Boss, not realising that it’s also going to be a lot of hard work. To produce the money to allow your business to survive and thrive, productive billable work will need to be accomplished, or sellable products will have to be made and sold. In order to do that you need to concentrate on only your fruitful task list.
In business there are tasks that produce results and some that are out-and-out wastes of time.
But, how do you know when something is a fruitful task and something is just a time waster?
As a Virtual Assistant I know that there are a few major ways business owners waste time:
* Busy Work – Many business owners spend a lot of time doing things that feel like work, but aren’t really productive. How many times can you edit and rewrite that blog post? How many times can you redo your website, or scour social media before you realise it’s not productive? It’s a money waster.
* Social Media – It’s an excellent way to market your business but it can be distracting, so you need to time yourself and have a specific task in mind before getting on social media during work hours. Create a list of actions that you will take and stick to those and nothing else. Find yourself losing hours of your working day? The answer is to outsource!
* Email Checking – You need a business email and a personal email. Check your personal email only off business hours, and check your work email at specific intervals throughout the day with specific actions in mind. For instance, don’t read all those newsletters you signed up for every time; set aside a specific time for that.
* Phone Calls – Meetings and phone calls seem productive, but are they really? They are if you have an agenda and stick to the agenda and don’t waiver off into other territory and just start chatting mindlessly. If you’re not good at doing that, try to eliminate them.
* Outside Distractions – Especially if you start running your business from home. The TV, email notification beeping, friends calling and so forth are all distractions that you can reduce or eliminate during work hours if you make it your goal. If your goal is to earn money, just ask yourself before you do anything, “Is this task getting me closer to my goal?” If the answer is no, stop doing it.
Ask yourself the following questions before doing any activity:
* Is this activity planned and scheduled?
* Is the project defined with a deadline?
* Is the activity goal producing?
If you can answer yes to the above questions, then it may well be a good task to keep doing and not a time waster.
However, if you answer no, the activity is likely not a fruitful task and is a time waster and that’s when you need to start thinking of outsourcing it to a Virtual Assistant.
The great thing is that you can choose not to waste time; once you have identified actual time wasters, you can seek to eliminate them from your day and get outside help. Contact me today if you need that help to make your working day fruitful!
