How to Enhance Small Business Productivity

How to Enhance Small Business Productivity

Everyone knows that if you don’t know where you’re going any road will take you there.

As a small business owner keeping focus on your productivity is really important.

I was watching an old episode of “How I met  your mother”

It was that episode when Ted decided to start is own architectural business.

Now maybe if Ted had followed these five steps he would have gotten off to a much better start.

When you’re an entrepreneur you have to know how to use your time to the best of your ability.

You must make every minute a productive one.

Which means things like

Making sure you have the right type of stationery is not very important.

So how do you ensure productivity when you have so many other things to do?

Well these five steps are not going to guarantee your business success but they will ensure that they lay the foundation for a more productive business.

Small Business Productivity Tip 1: Set goals

Yes you’ve probably heard this a million times.

Set your goals.

And your goals should be SMART.

But let’s get real here for a minute.

What does goal setting have to do with productivity?

Well it’s simple

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Goal setting is not something that a great mind invented to get people stuck!

Goal setting is for us to know where we’re heading.

So that we know what we’re going to be doing.

When productivity in large companies start to fall perform this very short exercise –

Take a walk around and ask five random employees what are the goals of the company.

If they can’t answer there lies YOUR answer as to why productivity is falling.

How are people suppose to know what to work on if they don’t know what they are working towards!

The same principle applies in your small business.

Know where you’re heading so that you know what to do.

Small Business Productivity Tip 2: Ignore Emails

Yes I said it!

Ignore the evil thing called email (except mine of course!)

When I’m working I put my phone on airplane mode.

It’s not that I don’t like speaking to people or reading emails,

But when I’m working – that’s all I’m doing.

Email can be a huge distraction.

I call it “the little rabbit hole.”

It can suck you in and before you know it – you’ve spent 45 minutes on email!

Schedule time to check and respond to email.

Don’t have your email on when you’re trying to do work – the notifications will distract you.

Small Business Productivity Tip 3: Focus on one task at a time

I believe I mentioned this before – but I’m going to say it again.

Multi-tasking is impossible.

Let me correct that.

You can multi-task

but you can’t

Multi- FOCUS

Get it?

Just because you have ten windows open on your computer doesn’t mean that you’re working on all ten windows.

As human beings our brains can only focus on one thing at a time.

If you’re doing two things at the same time, you’re either not focusing on either of them or one is getting more attention than the other.

The only way you will be productive is if you focus on one thing at a time.

Make a list and work down that list.

But for your own productivity levels don’t try to do more than one thing at a time.

I think I’ve beaten that one to death don’t you?

Small Business Productivity Tip 4: Organize your space and time

Here’s something about productivity that I’m still working on personally.

Organizing your space and time.

I have the time thing down pretty well….. it’s the space.

As an engineer I know the importance of an organized work space.

I remember training people in manufacturing facilities on this very topic.

It’s easier to get work done – and we’ve actually proven this with time studies –

if you have a clean and organized work space.

You know where everything is

you have room to move about

You don’t feel cluttered.

Well as you can see I still have some work to do in that area.

Small Business Productivity Tip 5: Make a plan

No you’re probably wondering what’s the difference between a plan and a goal.

The plan is the how!

The goal is the where!

Your productivity will ultimately depend on the what you need to get done.

Planning activities is what creates production.

But you need everything above to start production.

Final Thoughts

In small business we want to see the growth in revenue quickly.

The honest truth is, if you don’t know how to manage your time and focus on the tasks that will bring revenue …..

it will simply not come!

Knowing what to delegate and when is also most important.

You can’t do everything!

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