Every entrepreneur dreams about being more productive. We tend to think that doing more comes with more stress as well, but that does not have to be the case at all. I am going to show you 3 ideas for boosting your productivity in your business.
How do we measure productivity?
There are 3 main pillars to measuring productivity :
- Time – We must learn to manage it to build a stable and healthy work-life balance and increase our productivity.
- Energy – Energy is a fundamental part of productivity. The more energy we have, the easier it feels to accomplish our goals
- Focus – as soon as we understand what we need to focus on and exactly how much attention we need to put into certain tasks, this is where our productivity really starts to improve.
So, now we have a little bit of a better understanding of how to measure productivity, but how do we implement this?
1. Keep your health in check.
Being healthy is a goal most of us share. That being said what most of us consider healthy behaviours are usually just the beginning.
Sure, if you can manage to drink plenty of water and do some push-ups you will be on the right track to being healthier, but when it comes to boosting productivity there are a few more things we need to consider :
- Stress Levels
- Proper nutrition
- Mental clarity
When it comes to business and health usually the main factor that holds us back is SLEEP. We don’t get enough of it! This brings mental fogginess, we all wish we could sleep an hour and feel new again so we have as much time as we can grasp. The truth is we need to sleep enough to be able to function at max capacity.
Sleep is essential for boosting Productivity In Your Business and overall life.
Now, one of the most important things when it comes to both physical and mental health is proper nutrition, have you ever heard of the line: “We are what we eat” well, this is a core part of our lives we need to structure properly to be as productive as possible. Something we have all fallen victim to at some point is ordering fast food or “easy to prepare” meals. Thinking that the least amount of time we spend on preparing meals, the more time to work we have. The benefits of having proper nutrition far outweigh the little time you save by eating less than ideal food. You may want to consider using the app MyFitnessPal.
Eating the right food is important so you can have as much energy as possible and therefore be more productive
We can not talk about improving mental clarity without pointing out the importance of daily meditation. Even just 10 minutes a day can have a tremendous impact on your daily focus. Meditating has a ton of benefits but most importantly it will give you the clarity you need to perform your best throughout the entire day. There are plenty of free and easy-to-use apps that can guide you through simple meditations.
Meditation is a great way to improve your focus and boost your productivity.
2. Get organized.
We all know that being organized is a good trait to have, but how do you actually get to be organized?
Here are a few concepts that will help you get on the right track:
Time Tracking software
Using tracking software can be good for multiple reasons since you can see the amount of time you invest in a particular project. It motivates you to accomplish the task faster. When we have a clear understanding of how much a certain task actually takes, that is when we can take a step back and start to make little tweaks to improve our productivity. For example, let’s say you check your emails every morning and it’s just a standard task you do every day. Once you start tracking your time, you realize you just spent 2 hours reading and responding to these non-essential emails! You can spend that time much better by doing tasks that will have a direct impact on your bottom line. You could decide to let someone else take care of these emails while you focus on growing your business. By doing so, you’ve just gained 2 hours that previously would be spent on non-essential tasks. All that because you didn’t have a clear enough understanding of how much time it actually took away from you.
These are some time management software you might want to consider using:
- Toggl
- Tmetric
- Harvest
These apps will help you track and improve your time management, keeping you more organized and helping you on your road to maximum productivity.
Project Management tools
Project management tools help an individual or team to organize and manage their projects and tasks effectively. It gives you the ability to display who needs to do what and by when. This really does help when it comes to bigger businesses but do not be mistaken, even a one-man show can see great productivity boosts from utilizing these tools.
Why you might ask?
Being able to see all the tasks you need to complete and in a top-to-bottom priority list, will give you the ability to manage your time and focus on the tasks at hand without being all over the place. Businesses that are not yet utilizing a project management tool are likely to do more work while gaining less profit because of the time wasted on juggling little tasks. If these tasks are taken care of efficiently, you will have more time to focus on core operations to complete your project.
Digital Distractions
It’s very important to understand that we live in the digital era therefore it’s almost impossible to not use digital products. Even though (like we previously mentioned throughout this blog) these tools can greatly help us achieve more productivity, some of these can also distract us. For example, we all know by now that it’s essential for businesses to be on social media. But if we don’t manage our time on these platforms effectively we may end up losing more time and energy than we expected.
One of the best ways to make sure we can focus on the tasks at hand and not be distracted is simply turning on “Do Not Disturb” on your mobile device when handling an important task. Even consider using an app like Offtime, this will help you block out distractions and be able to focus, therefore increasing productivity.
3. Outsourcing
Outsourcing is one of the biggest and fastest ways successful businesses are increasing productivity at a massive scale. Some entrepreneurs feel like they are losing control when they are not managing every aspect of their business. But keep in mind that if you are spending time trying to perform every single task, you risk being underproductive. Productivity is doing more with less, not simply “doing more.”
Even though outsourcing is seen as only a cost-cutting tool it’s very much also a strategic tool. By outsourcing certain activities, you reduce the amount of time and energy you need to put into basic tasks.
You also don’t need to invest in expensive equipment, infrastructure, technology, office space and maintenance; the provider takes care of these.
If you’re stressed out from trying to juggle multiple things at once, and it’s taking a toll on your productivity, consider outsourcing. To find out if outsourcing is right for your company, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and tasks that you don’t enjoy doing. The key is to determine whether a non-core task could be performed by a third party at a lower rate, more quickly and efficiently.
Click here to learn 3 more reasons why outsourcing can help you grow.
Of course, it is also important that you find a good service provider, that’s why here at DoneMaker we can help you get many tasks done so you can save time and energy while having the ability to focus on the core aspects of your business.
