Every business environment is dynamic in its own way. As your business moves forward, you will learn that there is no time to be wasted. Efficiency and productivity is the key in order to ensure that business is flowing and that you are not working long hours to get everything done.
Proper time management is crucial both for the workers and employers. Partially, it is an individual thing but it starts with a good organization from management and it is transferred down the line.
Time is Money – Literally
In business, the less time you need to do something usually means a higher profit margin. It doesn’t matter if your business is manufacturing, reselling or providing a service. Less time spent on a job means more availability to do additional work.
Prioritize the Right Things
In busy periods, the workload can increase significantly, meaning that some jobs would need to be delayed. In situations like these, prioritizing is the only thing you can do, but you need to do it right. Sometimes this means that you need to let a customer down. Even though that is not the optimal solution, with the right approach and the right attitude the customer will understand the situation.
Obviously, jobs that have a high-profit margin should make it to the top of your list of priorities. Still, don’t infinitely push some tasks over others – customers will sometimes accept you having to delay a job, but you can’t expect for them to tolerate that for a long time.
Reduce Stress
Stress is a part of work. While you can’t completely eliminate it, good time management will definitely reduce it. Not managing your time properly can lead to having to rush things so you don’t miss the deadline. However, doing something quickly means that you are making yourself prone to making errors. If you plan your tasks properly, you will dismiss the possibility of something going wrong along the line and provide a better quality of work.
Technology is Your Friend
Thanks to technological advancements, we were able to automate parts of our jobs and cut down the time we spend on tasks. Technology is never resting and it is working in your favor – you just need to grab the opportunity.
This is especially true if you are working in the service sector and you despatch employees to jobs. Bad planning can result in unneeded downtime – if your employee has three jobs to do in one day on different locations, they will end up spending a lot of time driving around if you don’t organize their route in a logical and efficient way. Using scheduling and dispatching software will make your life easier since not only you will be able to plan your worker’s day, you will also be able to receive real-time updates of the jobs and know who is available if something urgent comes in.
Multitasking is a Myth
Yes, it is. If you are still calling yourself a multitasker, it is now time to stop. Multitasking doesn’t exist – our brains switch from one task to the other at a given moment and they are not focusing on more tasks all at once. So it is only an illusion that we are multitasking.
But even if it was possible, multitasking doesn’t work that well in practice. Doing too many things at once only increases the chances of things going wrong. And after all, it is better to complete two tasks than complete five but only halfway through.
Improve Work/Life Balance
Unfortunately, for every person in this world, working is something we can’t get away from. However, sometimes we are all so carried away with working that we forget to live life to the fullest. Getting everything done in 8 hours while you are also happy with how things are going will reflect positively on you and the people around you.
Avoid Procrastination
If there is one thing that there isn’t any room for in business it’s procrastination. Pushing things on the side until the day of the deadline comes is damaging – work accumulates and you are automatically exposing yourself to a lot of stress.
Self-discipline is important for achieving high productivity. If you start practising it and also inspire changes in the workplace that will make the employees do the same, you will soon create healthy working habits that will push your business towards new successes.
The secret behind every successful business is not even a secret – it is good time management. Maximizing the usage of your time will quickly reflect on your profit. The more you get done in less time, the more beneficial things will be for you. Use all the tools that you have at disposal and promote healthy working habits. Start with the right planning and the right attitude – the success will follow.
Author Bio: Marie Erhart is a Success Manager at FieldPulse, creators of field service software that lets you run your entire contracting business from a single app. She works with contractors to help them grow their business using best practices.