Time management skills to improve your small business

One of the quickest ways to improve your results is by getting more of the important stuff done. There is only so much you can do within the day. If you are a small business owner, even more so as all the decisions and actions come directly from you. It is important to find time management skills so you can improve them for your small business, or any business.

But it’s difficult to do this if your days and weeks are chaotic and unplanned and you are continuously playing catch up. We could write a whole book about time management (and some people have) but that is not the purpose, so we will just share with you some key time management tips for you to work on to improve your small business.

Create a ‘Master List’

Firstly, you need to get everything out of your head and onto paper (or an electronic list). Build a “Master To Do List” so that you can see everything on your plate right now. It may seem daunting, but it is best to understand the full picture so that you can do something about it instead of burying your head in the sand and having tasks that were not accounted for.

Segment into weeks

The next step is to plan in weeks. This means that at the start of each week you should review your Master List and the key things that you want to get done for the week. From there write these down on a separate Weekly List. This along with even looking into your cashflow. Deadlines and urgent tasks should be tackled first, and it does also help to be able to group tasks.

Review, review, review

The final step to for this exercise is to review and optimise. From experience working with our clients, we have found that spending 10-15 minutes each week reviewing and creating a Weekly List will make your week at least 10-20% more productive. Even just writing up the Master List and referring to it regularly is a simple and effective habit. For most people, having a Weekly List to refer to during the week will be enough. Others may want to create a Daily To Do List, or add to their Weekly List as new things pop up during the week.

Everyone is different but you can use versions of this simple system to best suit your working style. You can also look at our other articles for small businesses, including how to properly design your small business.

We are always looking for ways to help out smaller businesses reach their full potential. While we have discussed how to improve your time management skills, we can go more in-depth with Financially Sorted by booking an appointment today. Follow us on social media to keep up to date.