7 ways to work smarter and not harder

Have you got a to-do list that seems to grow and grow?

Do you find yourself wishing there were 36 hours every day?

Well, don’t worry – you’re not alone. It’s a typical problem for growing businesses that, at first sight, seems incredibly difficult to overcome.

But help is at hand, and the good news is that it doesn’t cost a lot of money to implement but will make and save you money almost immediately.

We’ve put together seven tips for working smarter and not harder to help you regain control of your day.

Give yourself time – The first thing to do is to allow some time to manage the business. Take a bird’s eye view of what you are doing and make the changes that will pay dividends later. It may not be easy to take a few hours out of business, but you must be disciplined. If you are constantly being interrupted, sit in your local coffee shop and plan the changes that will transform your day. Once you’ve done this, make it a regular date to keep up the momentum.

Be ruthless – Look at everything you do and ask yourself, “Why do we do that”? If the answer is because you’ve always done it that way or even worse, you can’t think why you do it, then cut it out. There’s no benefit to doing work for the sake of it.

Plan your work, then work your plan – too often, we turn up to work and get pushed from pillar to post and feel that nothing has been achieved. Studies show that executives with a day plan get more tasks completed and do so quicker than those who have failed to organise their day.

Prioritise your plan – Ensure you do essential jobs rather than just the ones you like. Give each task a score of ten based on how critical and urgent it is. Do the charges with the highest scores first, not those you enjoy doing.

Stop reinventing the wheel – There are hundreds, if not thousands, of apps and software programs that will help you with your day, from things as simple as free expenses managers that will take a photo of a receipt and then automatically produce a report to full-blown accounting software. Look around at what’s available and consider investing a small amount to take away admin drudgery and give back some of your valuable time.

Delegate – it can be challenging to let go when you’ve built up your business. Still, if you never train and trust people, then your business won’t be able to grow any more than the amount of time you have available. If you don’t have anyone working for you, ask family or friends for occasional help. You may be surprised to find that people enjoy helping out.

Outsource – If you can get someone else to do a task that frees you up to concentrate on your core business, then it’s worth doing. An excellent example of this is bookkeeping and accountancy, where a professional will be quicker and more accurate. While they are poring over your books, you can be out earning money!

The best tip we can give is to remember that you are a business manager rather than just someone who works in a business. Applying these tips will give you more capacity to run your business than have it run you!