time management

Understanding The Average Productive Time Of An Employee

MOMENTUM Business Support Business Support, Home Working
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In today’s fast-paced business world, time is money. It’s essential for small business owners to understand the average productive time of their employees to ensure optimised productivity. The average productive time of a UK employee is a crucial factor in determining the extent to which businesses can achieve productivity goals. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the specifics of how much time an average employee spends on productive tasks and what you, as a small business owner, can do to maximise it.

According to studies, the average productive time of an employee is 2 hours and 53 minutes! This means that the rest of the workday is spent on non-productive tasks such as checking emails, scrolling through social media, and chatting with colleagues. So, where does this leave businesses? It leaves them with an unsatisfactory amount of productive time which deters the growth of their company. If this is a recurring issue, there are some steps you can take to boost employee productivity.

Firstly, start by determining what tasks are critical to your business’s success. By setting clear expectations of what is expected of your employees, you will enable them to remain focused on the essential tasks that drive the business’s success. You can implement this by prioritising individual workloads or delegating specific responsibilities to your team, which can help them stay on track.

Secondly, consider the physical office environment. An office layout will significantly impact employee productivity, and research shows that it can enhance an employee’s mood and productivity. Optimising the office space is key when it comes to creating the perfect working environment. You can provide comfortable seating areas, natural light, and make sure the space is free from distractions like noise to help your team remain focused on their tasks.

Thirdly, adopt technology and automation. There are various software solutions that can streamline the workflows, tasks, and data management like CRM, collaboration tools, project management software, and more. Automating these tasks can create more time for your team to dedicate to other critical tasks.

Lastly, something as small as planning regular breaks can also help boost productivity. Studies show that allowing short breaks for employees can improve their mood, focus, and productivity. Encourage your employees to take intermittent breaks between tasks to refresh their mind and prevent fatigue.

Your team’s productivity is a critical component of your business’s success. Knowing the average productive time of a UK employee empowers small business owners to optimise their productivity and improve their work habits, leading to increased motivation and productivity. By prioritising tasks, optimising the office environment, automating tasks, and promoting frequent breaks, you can maximise the productivity of your employees and ensure the success and growth of your small business.

If you’d like to find out more about our thoughts on employee productivity, or talk about alternative solutions to increase your return on investment when it comes to choosing who can help you with your back-office tasks, get in touch!

T: 01903 688789 E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com

Time Management: The Key To A Better Work-Life Balance

MOMENTUM Business Support Business Support, Home Working
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Over the last few years businesses have worked tirelessly to stay afloat, and so it is no surprise that so many of us are now struggling to separate our work and home life. We often find it difficult to ‘switch off ‘and relax once getting home – and while our businesses may be growing, it comes at the cost of our personal well-being. While a work-life balance doesn’t literally have to be spilt 50/50, for both areas to thrive – harmony must exist between the two.

Your time away from work is integral to maintaining a productive routine and avoiding burnout. Whilst striking a balance can sometimes seem like an impossible task, it becomes much more accessible once improving your time management. Here are our top tips for achieving a better work life balance:

Establish your priorities

Often the most challenging task is determining what needs to be done first. Understanding your agenda and establishing a priority system for your tasks is crucial for maintaining harmony. A physical list of all your tasks can go a long way- helping to visualise and establish an appropriate approach. Divide your duties into categories such as ‘urgent’ and ‘less urgent’, and don’t be afraid to include non work-related tasks. It is important to be able to look at the bigger picture and prioritise, cut down or rule things out completely. Remember that no task is more important than your wellbeing. Pencil in some time for yourself!

Schedule and plan

Prioritising your tasks often goes hand in hand with planning and scheduling. It allows you to designate a time frame, thus making it easier to see how much time you’re spending and where. There are many business tools that can help you along the way. From online schedulers, digital diaries to time logs – there are plenty of resources that help improve your time efficiency and awareness. Look at your calendar and make sure you have enough leeway between each duty. Back-to-back tasks without a minute to spare are not practical and often end up creeping into overtime. Spread out your assignments and balance out the heavier workloads with some easier tasks in-between. This will help you complete your work duties to a higher standard while leaving enough time for you to wind down.

Know when to outsource/delegate

It may seem like powering through workloads and completing everything yourself is the way to go. However, there is always someone else out there who could do that task quicker and more efficiently – allowing you to get on with more pressing matters. Delegating and outsourcing is not only more time efficient but also ensures that everything is finished before the deadline, without increasing your working hours in the process. It is the perfect solution for every business owner struggling to find enough hours in the day and the most effective way of achieving that work-life balance.

Knowing your strengths and setting expectations

Before you begin working toward a goal, decide whether it’s something you can achieve now or whether there are additional preliminary steps you should take to become better prepared. Using micro-productivity may help – it works by dividing large parts of the task into smaller, easier pieces. Setting milestones as you complete parts of the task will give you the chance to evaluate and readjust if needed. Setting an end date/ deadline helps by giving you an extra push towards a goal. If you don’t complete the task by deadline, the timeframe might have been unrealistic – be wary of unexpected roadblocks. Making your tasks more manageable allows for more consistent work times and thus a more balanced routine.

If you’d like to find out more about time management or other tips for achieving a better work-life balance, we would love to help! We offer various back-office services, tailored to suit a range of business needs. Get in touch:

E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com   T: 01903 688789

‘Conveyer Belt’ Your Way To Saving Time

MOMENTUM Business Support Administration, Business Support
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I recently worked on a project for a client, covering whilst a member of their team was away. She is extremely efficient, knows what she’s doing and never wastes time (I know this from working with her regularly)! And yet, whilst I was covering her work, I was around 30% quicker at getting the tasks done than usual.

I considered a number of things to try to understand this. Including: 

The process – was I changing or reducing the number of actions taken to achieve the same result? .. No.

The amount of work – were the number of work requests fewer than those usually provided? .. No.

The time of day – considering that each person varies in productivity level depending on the time of day and other influencing factors? .. No!

So what was it??

When she came back from her annual leave, we did the usual handover and I took the opportunity to talk to her about my thoughts on the timing issue. What I discovered, (and she has since taken up!), is that we use a different method, mine evidently saving significantly more time.

So here it is: The method;

I call it my conveyer belt system, which will hopefully make sense as I explain..

When taking on any task, simple or complex, I always break it down into chunks. Usually with admin, you’ll have a number of different tasks throughout any given day and any one action will be repeated several times. E.g. Invoice processing, raising quotes, filing documents, organising emails, updating spreadsheets, and so on etc. 

It’s highly likely that for any task that comes in you’ll do it as you go. I.e. Process that invoice, update the relevant spreadsheet, then reply to an email, process the next invoice etc. Whilst that feels productive because you’re getting through everything, it’s actually quite inefficient. You’re constantly having to go in and out of various files and systems, and your brain is having to focus on something new every 5 minutes!

If you consider for a moment, a factory. A product is created by going through various stages of a conveyer belt system, and each area of the conveyer belt focusses on one action. This is the most efficient way. It would be impossible for the labelling element to also design, create and package the product. And if it were possible, that one area of the machine would take considerably longer to produce multiple products at any one time.

So, to be as effective as possible, we need to adopt the same theory. 

Still with me? Not quite? OK, let’s run through a couple of examples..

Example1 – Invoice Processing: 

Firstly, it’s likely you’re going to receive more than one invoice per day, week or month. So, depending on the frequency, you want to choose one time of day, one day a week, or one day a month to process all of your invoices together. This is the first stage of your conveyer belt – working out what needs to be actioned and when. 

Next, breakdown the task of processing an invoice. What actions are required? You’ll need to;

  1. Open/ load/ view the invoice
  2. Save it to your files
  3. Add it to your accounting software
  4. Possibly add it to a task list or other spreadsheet for internal use/ reporting
  5. Get payment approval
  6. Pass it for payment

That’s quite a list just for one small job. I know each of those elements won’t take long, maybe 30 seconds to a minute, but that means each invoice can take up to 6 minutes to process! It also means that for each one, you have to move your brain through 6 different activities, adding on a few more precious seconds.

Getting back to our conveyer belt theory. If you were to instead action all invoices, within each stage, at the same time, think how much time and brain re-engagement effort that would save! Opening all (10 let’s say) invoices one after the other, then running through and saving them all, adding each to the accounting software, etc. etc. Until all actions are complete across your entire conveyer belt.

After the first one, this brings each ‘new’ 30-60 second action down to 20 or 40 seconds because you’re no longer having to think or work so hard on each section. Each action becomes a brief habit in that moment of time. And suddenly you’ve gone from 1 hour to completely process 10 invoices, to only 40 minutes. Across an entire day, you’ve saved almost 2.5 hours!! Just think what else you could be doing with that time.

Example 2 – Organising Emails:

If you’re anything like me, by the end of the day your inbox can start to look a bit messy and needs a good sort out ready for the next! You keep articles or newsletters you want to read, but haven’t and possibly won’t get round to. You have important emails that no longer need actioning but do need to be saved or filed. There’re junk emails you’ve skipped over in a hurry to get to more urgent matters. There’re non-urgent emails that need a response you haven’t gotten round to yet. And a number of other wonders in between!

Following a similar approach to the above, to get through this as quickly and efficiently as possible, we need to adopt the ‘conveyer belt’ method. Start by breaking down the types of emails you have;

  1. Urgent – needs a reply
  2. Non-urgent – but still needs a reply
  3. Information only – need to review but no reply required
  4. Informative – articles, newsletters, offers etc.
  5. Junk/ spam – Why am I still getting these!!!

Then, for each type, consider the actions required (and the priority). Work through each email type (not each email, each type). For example, all of the urgent – needs a reply emails. Once you’ve done one, your mindset will be focussed on appropriate wording and responses, so doing the next and the next will get easier and easier. Follow this with the non-urgent – needs a reply emails. They might not be urgent, but whilst your brain is in the right gear, get them done. It will take less time overall.

If you have emails that need filing out of your mail system, do them all at once. If you’ve decided that you want to get rid of all the newsletters from ‘products are us’ (because you’re just not going to get round to reading them), do a search, pull them all up at once and delete them all together. Don’t spend time unnecessarily running through each of your emails to find them. 

Find all of your junk emails and get into a rhythm – opening each one, unsubscribing and then deleting it. And so on within each area of your emails.

To summarise: 

Your whole day, week, month or even year can be broken down into chunks of the work, tasks and actions needed – areas of time that can be managed dependent on the frequency of the task required. Start there. Then once you’ve figured that out, you can focus on the individual tasks and the actions necessary to complete them. From there, you can set up your ‘conveyer belt’ system. Good luck! 

Thank you for reading our blog, I hope you’ve found the ‘conveyer belt’ idea useful. If you need any help or want to chat through this idea in more detail, please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you. 

Tel: 01903 688789. Email: makeithappen@mbsmih.com.

Juggling It All As A Small Business

MOMENTUM Business Support Business Support
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It’s so easy to say yes to everything and everyone, but this can add a lot of stress to anyone who is self-employed or managing a small business, particularly with a household to run or a family to consider. So we’ve pulled together a few of our tips and tricks to help you manage.

Keep your calendar updated

Sounds simple, but if it slips your mind to add things into your calendar it can quickly snowball into overstretching yourself and can cause the added pressure of trying to fit too much in.

Top tip: Colour coding commitments is a great way to keep on top of everything and focus on the task in hand.

Plan your week

Planning is a big part of making sure your week runs as smoothly as possible. At the beginning of each week, ask yourself what you want to achieve realistically each day. Make a weekly (and then daily) plan, setting it all out.

Top tip: Make a list of what you would like to get done and work your way through it.

This will help you reach your end goal and keep a clear mind resulting in a better work/life balance.

Set realistic time frames

Set realistic time frames on everything from business priorities to family time. It’s never a good idea to squeeze anyone or anything in as it will take away from the quality of your work or time with those you care about.

Top tip: In your calendar, set approximate time frames on how long each task/activity should take you.

Spend time with family

Take time out to be present with family and focus on their needs and building / maintaining strong relationships with them. It’s easy to get caught up in constantly thinking about work and what needs to be done but it’s best to keep a clear line between business and family.

Top tip: Try keeping this time varied and interesting and you should find it helps keep energy levels up, resulting in a positive impact on work too.

Although there are many ways to juggle running a business with family time, sometimes you can still feel stretched and overwhelmed. At MOMENTUM we understand how valuable your time is, so should you find yourself in this position we’d love to help with our Admin and PA services. Get in touch by emailing makeithappen@mbsmih.com or by giving us a call on 01903 688789.

This article was featured in Issue 8 of Worthing & Adur Chamber of Commerce’s Connect Magazine

Getting Things Done More Effectively

MOMENTUM Business Support Admin, Administration, Business Support
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Effective: To successfully achieve the results that you want

In most cases, the result we want is to get [the task] done and get it done well, and knowing what it is that you need to complete or are trying to achieve is the first hurdle. From small tasks to big projects, the key to being most effective is to identify everything you need to do in the form of a ‘to do’ list. Start by making a note of everything you need to get done, not just the larger jobs, but the little ones as well.

Takeaway Tip: Always start with a ‘to do’ list

Make your to do list more effective by including timescales for every task you plan to complete (e.g. 10 minutes; 2 hours etc.), and then include timeframes for when they need to be completed by (e.g. 1 week; 2 days etc.). You now have a much better idea of exactly what you need to do, by when, and how long it will take.

Takeaway Tip: Ensure your ‘to do’ list includes realistic timeframes for every task

You want to be as effective as possible from the beginning of each new day, so give yourself a helping hand by knowing exactly what you’re going to achieve before you even sit at your desk or work station. Write your to do list the day before or at the beginning of each week to eliminate any procrastination at the start of your day.

Takeaway Tip: Know what you are going to achieve the day or week before

Finally, including set time slots in your calendar each day for getting key tasks and general admin done is vital to ensuring you make the time. Blocking out set days each week specifically for conducting meetings (such as a Tuesday and Thursday) will also help you to be more effective as you won’t be rushing around trying to juggle travel and work at the same time. This also applies to the larger tasks you have to do regularly, such as your month end processes or invoicing. Setting aside specific time each month in your calendar will help you focus on getting these done.

Takeaway Tip: Set aside time in your calendar for admin jobs, set meeting days, and month end tasks