Couldn't squeeze in a meeting with the customer support team? Or didn't get the time to check how new marketing strategies are performing report?
As an entrepreneur, you wear many hats and have a lot to juggle. It can feel like there simply isn’t enough time in the day with all of your responsibilities. That's why you must use your time efficiently.
And to do that, you first need to identify the areas where you are wasting time and figure out strategies to fix them. Today we will look at seven such areas where entrepreneurs tend to waste a lot of their time.
You may not realize it, but you likely waste a lot of time on activities you believe are important. Here’s a list of activities that you should think about cutting down on to truly leverage your time and abilities.
Meetings are not always the best way to find a solution or communicate updates and changes. Why waste time on holding a 1-hour meeting that could have been done by a 5-minute email?
For example, you should focus on the overall brand and marketing vision of your company. Don’t get caught up in details, and tell your social media marketing every single post they should add to LinkedIn or get too deep into social media marketing strategies.
Many meetings happen just because business owners get caught up on everything. And they don’t rely on their team to handle issues.
You should keep meetings only for essential issues and rely on emails or content management systems and save yourself time.
Everyone tries to get as close as possible to perfection. But that isn’t always a great idea, especially in the case of entrepreneurs.
Sometimes taking too much time to make sure everything is perfect can actually cost you more time than it is worth. Instead, try to focus on getting things done quickly and efficiently.
Always follow the MVP or Minimum Viable Product model, which some of the most successful startups use to grow fast. They launch products fast and learn as they go. Instead of wasting time and losing out by chasing perfection, do the best you can right now and focus on growth.
With added revenue, you can build teams and improve your products later.
Not holding meetings doesn't mean you should be overburdened with emails. Emails can be a great way to communicate, but if you are getting too many emails, it can really slow you down.
Try to limit the number of emails you send and receive. Or move this task over to an assistant.
You should use project management tools and chat messaging platforms like Slack to align tasks or communicate information.
And leverage your blog, customer support, and email newsletters for communicating with existing customers or potential ones also. If you sit to draft emails for each one, then you're done for.
Suppose you're receiving a lot of emails regarding customer feedback. Instead of replying to each and every one, you can create an automated email that responds to feedback.
Make sure you leverage automated customer relationship management (CRM) systems or hire a customer support team to handle your email marketing .
Failures are there to learn from and not dwell upon. It’s important to reflect on your mistakes but don't let them consume too much of your time.
Thinking about what could have been if you didn't make the mistake and trying to analyze why it happened can be a waste of time.
Your site isn't ranking in Google, or your SEO strategy isn't yielding the desired results. Then up your SEO game. Get your team to analyze the data and make changes accordingly. Move on instead of thinking about why the previous strategy failed for the moment.
Later on, when you've time to spare, you can always come back and reflect on what went wrong.
Again, this borrows from the principles of MVP and lean management thinking. Failures are just part of the process. They provide important data that you should view neutrally and leverage to make changes.
Micromanaging can be a huge time waster. You don't really need to check every single task your team does.
If you have a good team in place, then trust them with the task. Delegate the task and move on to other more important tasks. Don't hover over your team and check their every move.
The new changes that your website builders<span style="text-decoration:underline;"> </span>are making to make improve the site. Or the Keywords writers are using for SEO, you don't need to keep a constant eye on such minute things.
Trust your team and provide them guidance when required.
Not only does this save you time, but it also allows your team to shine at what they do and take ownership of their work. Which will lead to you building a self-managing company.
It's good to know what your competitors are up to so that you can plan accordingly. But constantly checking their every move and trying to get a win over them can eat up a lot of your time.
This is especially true for businesses that fall under the same niche and are in competition with each other. For instance, you own an email marketing agency and have a few other email marketing agencies<span style="text-decoration:underline;"> </span>as your competitors.
Now, if you keep checking their website and social media every day to see what new features they are providing, it's a total waste of time.
Focus on your growth and ways to improve your service. You can keep an eye on what they are up to but don't let it consume you.
Networking is important for any business. However, attending every single networking event isn't always necessary and can be a major time waster.
Like, owning a website-building firm doesn't mean you should attend every event related to developing a website.
Or if you own a content writing agency, attending digital marketing events won't be much use.
Identify the events wisely and then choose which ones you should attend.
Also, trying networking through social media platforms<span style="text-decoration:underline;"> </span>like LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook is another great way to network. But it can get you addicted if you're not careful.
You might think of tweeting or commenting on something to connect with the right people. But it can turn into a major distraction.
A better step is to join a mastermind group. Here, you’ll meet peers with similar goals in your industry. This will be a better use of your time and will lead to insights and information you can actually use.
Identifying and removing the areas where you are wasting time is only half the battle. Once those have been taken care of, you need to devise strategies to save time. Here are a few ways you can do that:
Automate as many of your business tasks as you can.
This could be anything from automated emails, CRMs for customer service, invoicing systems for billing, content management systems for project management, etc.
The list is endless. Make it a point to use project management tools, content marketing tools, and communication tools to save yourself time.
You can use project management tools like Asana or Trello to keep track of projects and stay on top of your team's progress.
Outsourcing is another way to save yourself time. You can outsource certain tasks that don't require your expertise.
You can also outsource if you lack in-house talent. This is especially true in the case of creative tasks like building a website or content writing.
You want to start a blog for your site. But don't have writers to write blogs. Then just hire freelancers or an agency to do it for you.
Use Upwork and Fiverr to have mundane tasks like customer service or data entry handled by qualified and trustworthy people online. Start with small tasks and then give more work to people who show that you can rely on them.
Sometimes there are better people to do certain tasks than you. So don't be afraid to outsource if you have the budget for it.
Should you focus on marketing strategies first or on customer service?
In such cases, it's important to prioritize. It's essential to identify what is more important and tackle that task first.
Make a list of all the tasks you have to do and prioritize them.
Also, don't get caught up in low-priority tasks. You might want to do them but if they are not important or urgent then don't waste your time on them.
Biting off more than you can chew is a surefire way to waste your time.
To put it simply, avoid over-committing to tasks.
Don't take up projects that you know you won't be able to complete or have the capacity to do.
Suppose you run a content writing firm. Now a client approaches you for web designing services. You don't have the resources to do that.
In such a case, politely decline the project. Taking up such projects will only waste your time and energy.
Going over social media marketing analytics, while also keeping an eye on SEO and responding to emails all at the same time isn't a good idea.
Multitasking doesn't really save you time. Rather, it takes up more time as you switch from one task to another.
Plus, increases the risk of errors as well.
For instance, you can't go over the budget while going over your email marketing strategies.
Focus on one task at a time and give it your full attention. Once you are done with the current task, move on to the other one.
Time is a valuable resource. As entrepreneurs, we need to make the best use of our time and prevent it from getting wasted.
Because time and money go hand in hand. Wasting one means wasting both. So make sure to stay organized and remove tasks that don’t add value. Some such practical ways to save time have already been discussed in this article.
Learn them and start implementing them today to get the most out of your time.
Good points, it does require discipline though, especially for revenue generating activities that are also a distraction. In the early days its really hard to say "no" when you are counting every penny. Its a constant struggle. Thanks for posting!
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