When you’re running your own business it’s easy to do things in a particular way because that’s how they’ve always been done. We can end up being blind to new and more efficient ways to do things which would free up time and resources for you to spend expanding your business.

Here are five tips to help make your business more efficient:

Plan

Planning is the first thing to do when you sit down at the start of the working day. This will help focus your mind and ensure you don’t get to the end of the day wondering what you’ve done with your time.

Start by writing down all the things you need to get done that day. Break bigger and more complicated tasks into component pieces so they’re more achievable and less intimidating. Then, number the tasks in order of priority; try to get some of the difficult, unpleasant tasks out of the way first; this will make the rest of the day seem easier.

Keep your list visible so can you can regularly check your progress throughout the day and cross off tasks as they are completed. My favourite tool for managing simple tasks is Any.do which is free and very easy to use.

Outsource

How much of your time is devoted to servicing customers, looking for new customers and taking advantage of business opportunities? Compare this with how you spend on administrative tasks that don’t really add anything to your business.

You can outsource a lot of these latter tasks to a virtual assistant – someone who can do extra administrative work for you when you need it, so you only pay for what you use…

To continue reading this article and the last 3 tips including, ‘Automate’, ‘Avoid Meetings’, and ‘Use Downtime’, please follow this link:
http://mashable.com/2014/07/14/5-tips-to-work-smarter-not-harder/