In my last post, I emphasized the importance of using your time according to the 80/20 rule, where you focus your efforts into your most profitable efforts. But how do you know which efforts are really paying off?

You’re going to have to log all your activities and how much time you spend doing non-productive work. For that, you’re going to need a spreadsheet.

Put together a simple Excel grid with two columns showing time range and the type of activity. Start recording the actual work that you do, going into some detail as to the types of tasks involved. This will help a lot later, when you’re not just focusing on what activities provide the most benefit, but also how efficiently you’re doing them. There may be ways to reduce the number of steps to produce virtually the same output.

If you’re being interrupted, record that as well – who’s doing the interrupting, who called you on the phone, who instant-messaged you, why you left your desk and so on.

Do this for at least one day, though if your week varies significantly, you may need to do this exercise for the entire period. This will also help you to arrange more consistent routines.

Finally, you get to the most important part – go through the logs you’ve recorded and note the activities that are providing a real measurable benefit to your business. This can also be the hardest part. You may want to consult with a business coach or time management expert to provide feedback on the best use of your time that you’ve recorded.

Now you’re on your way to designing a better time management system that you can use for the long term. You know what to do. There’s no time to waste.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

A big part of automating your business means being tech savvy. Name an administrative business function and you’ll probably find a free, or inexpensive, online tool to get it done. Google alone has dozens of apps you can use to organize, create, promote and network.

A few of my favorite tech tools for business include:

GTDMail

This email service provides simple workflow that transforms emails into tasks, enabling you to process them much more efficiently. Create categories like Follow Up, Read and Action for various types of responses. Create a Snooze folder so you can have the email re-delivered to you when it’s convenient.

Jott

Imagine having a private secretary following you around 24/7, transcribing all your thoughts so you can retrieve your ideas at any time. With Jott, you can record messages on your cellphone and have the messages sent to Outlook as sound files or transcribed and sent to your email.

Sticky Notes

Lots of people still use the paper sticky notes to help remind them of important tasks. Digital sticky notes fulfill the same purpose on your computer, without adding to your clutter. You can insert hyperlinks into them to make them more useful.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Automating scheduled business functions like bookkeeping, filing, follow up calls is critical to profitability.

If you’re running a small business, you may be handling many of those administrative tasks on your own. These can distract you from your real work, providing the products or services that earn you income. But these things must be done.

Multitasking is a tricky art. A study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (Vol. 27, No. 4) indicates that multitasking may actually be less efficient. Shifting the kind of work that you do requires extra energy and focus; doing so multiple times a day can be draining. If you’re always “putting out fires”, you’re not going to get as much accomplished.

As performance expert Adam Fraser notes, “what we have to do is start to control our environment and minimize distractions – turn the technology off, set aside times of the day to focus on work, and practicing being present, even in conversations.”

The trick is to schedule certain tasks at regular times of the week or month, so you get it all done in the same work session. For instance, you might schedule your invoicing to be done for the middle and last days of every month. Schedule regular filing for the third Tuesday of every month, and follow-up phone calls to contacts (new and old) for two hours twice a week. Whatever the activity, it doesn’t really matter when you do it, so long as it becomes a regular, easy-to-remember part of your schedule so you can’t procrastinate.

Building these kinds of time management systems into your business will help you be more productive and also allow you to keep better track of employees’ time as your business grows, since you can pass on tried and true practices to them.

The first step in developing your schedule is defining the measurable priorities and tasks that you must do for your business and coming up with reasonable time estimates to plug into your calendar. If you need help with that first step, make it your first scheduled task to consult with an expert to make it happen.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

The 80/20 rule still applies when times are tough, and maybe even more when times are good (as my fellow She-Team blogger Fiona Walsh has already emphasized – Only 20%). Now is not the time to retreat into your existing processes. It’s time to add force multipliers to your business. Let the fear go and do what you have to do.

We’re all aware of how the current economic climate is affecting businesses all over. We’re seeing cutbacks and layoffs. But it organizations have any hope of turning things around when the good times come back, it will come from using competitive principles.

You can accomplish 80 per cent of what you need to with just 20 per cent of your time, if you organize your efforts effectively. Who wouldn’t want to work for just 96 minutes a day? It’s possible, but it means making some changes in how you organize the way you work.

This means reducing distractions and inefficiencies. If you have to hunt for items in your workplace or in other spaces, you will need to ensure those items are placed in a recognizable place you will always remember. Put your stray papers into files. Put those files into archives. You’ve got materials that you know couldn’t possibly be relevant to a 10–year old audit or a client tomorrow? It’s time to de-clutter and organize.

Enable data management with a system everyone remembers. Ensure that information is available literally at your people’s fingertips and enable your people do what they do best.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca