As a business owner, you have many demands on your time and attention. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day. That means you need to find ways to manage your time more effectively so that you can accomplish more in less time. The good news is that there are several things you can do that will help you leverage your time so that you can do just that.
Adjust Your Priorities
Chances are you’ve prioritized throughout your professional life in an effort to get your business off the ground. You’ve prioritized spending, saving, and investing in hopes of reaching a point where you would have more time for yourself and your family.
The reality is probably a little different than you imagined all those years when you were saving to reach this point. What you may not realize, though, is that you are your biggest stumbling block here. You’ve worked hard to start your own business. It is your baby. You’ve invested so much time, love, money, and attention to get here that it is hard to remember why you wanted to be here in the first place.
Why did you start your business? While everyone has his or her own final reason, it comes down to one thing for most people. Freedom!
Freedom to spend time with your family. Freedom to retire on your own terms. Freedom from being chained to an office day after day.
But then you get there. You have your own business and you find yourself feeling as though if you leave the office too early everything will fall apart. You work later, longer hours and find yourself chained once again. It’s a different office. You’re the boss this time around. But the chains remain firmly in place – until you decide to break them and set your own priorities.
- Family
- Friends
- Hobbies
- Vacation
These things are all equally important for the health of your business as they will remind you of why you’re motivated to succeed, help you relax and recharge, and provide you with an opportunity to solve business problems by focusing your thoughts elsewhere.
You must make time for these things and that means you need to shift your priorities just a little bit so you can include them. These are a few of the things you can do to make that shift possible.
Train Your Employees Well
Surround yourself with outstanding people and train them well. This means you can leave the office, shop, restaurant, etc. and know that it is in good hands. Come up with a thorough training program and watch to see who is and isn’t following protocols. Keep those who are and delegate greater responsibilities and larger roles within your business to them.
In turn, they will reward you by working harder. That’s good for everyone. Plus, it means you can leave at the end of the day, or even sooner on occasion, with confidence that your business is in good hands.
Invest in the Right Tools
One of the most important investments you can make for your business comes in the form of a very smart point of sale system that does much more for your business than processing credit cards. Smart POS can save you time while saving your business money. That’s a win from the beginning. But it can also help with a wide range of tasks that are time consuming for most business owners. This includes tasks such as:
- Handling Taxes
- Marketing Your Business
- Tracking and Ordering Inventory
- Creating and Managing Loyalty Programs
- Creating Reports
- Data Management
- Data Analysis
- Managing Discounts and Promotions
- Scanning Barcodes
- Accepting Payments
- Recording Sales
By reducing the amount of time these tasks requires you can free up your time for things that are more profitable for the business or to engage in the important priorities you’ve established that are mentioned above.
The real beauty of software like this is that it doesn’t matter what industry your business is in. The software can be customized to meet the specific needs of your retail store, veterinarian clinic, accounting practice, machine shop, or more.
Implementing these time management tools into your business will help you to reach out to more customers, build your brand, and improve your profits all the while saving your valuable time so that you can invest it in things that are important to you as a person and as a business owner. Everyone wins, especially your business, when you’re able to work with both the passion you first brought into the business and a mind that is clear of distractions and not in danger of burning out from working too many long hours.