With January coming at us in full force and the whole of 2023 looming ahead of us, it’s only natural that we’re setting goals and making plans for the next twelve months.
As a business owner, one of your top priorities is always to simply be more efficient. Getting more work done in a shorter amount of time is the ultimate goal – it leads to more sales and less money spent, improving your profit margin tenfold. However, as good a goal as it might be, improved efficiency is not a simple achievement. That’s why we’ve put together some useful tips to help you get there in 2023.
Automation
One of the first and most important things to look at is automation, and more specifically, robotic process automation.
You might be asking, what is robotic process automation? How can it help me and my business? There’s a lot to unpack, but the short answer is that robotic automation uses technology and software to help you get time-consuming repetitive tasks done for your business without lifting a finger. Start doing some research and figure out what will work best for you.
Stay in the Loop
Next, it’s important that you stay on top of things somehow, so that you’re able to deal with problems and work with new ideas.
Holding a quick, ten-minute daily meeting across the company may sound like a waste of time, but it’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s going on in each department and pick up on any issues before the snowball. You could even set this up to be a stand-up meeting to ensure you keep it quick and efficient.
Use Task Batching Techniques
Switching from one task to another can use up a lot of mental energy and minutes of your and your employees’ precious time. Because of this, batching your tasks will often allow you to get more done in a day.
Task batching simply refers to grouping similar tasks together and getting them all done before moving on to something new.
Spend only the first hour or two of your day addressing emails, and then don’t let your inbox distract you for the rest of the day. Schedule as many meetings as possible on one day of the week so that your other days are free of these interruptions. If you have out-of-office errands to run, try to get a few of them done in one trip.
Try Out Time-Tracking
Another efficiency tool to attempt is using a time-tracking app or programme for you and your staff. These apps will automatically track how much time you spend on various programs on your computer, and you’ll be able to get a bird’s eye view of where all your time is really going.
Time tracking is also a great way to encourage improved productivity in your employees – when you know your every move is being monitored, you’re less likely to spend hours lurking on social media.