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We haven’t come across many small business owners that enjoy doing the day to day admin required to keep their business running, in-fact most of the owners we speak to frequently feel overwhelmed with the amount that needs to be kept on top of. We understand how difficult it can be to take care of everything yourself, so we thought we’d share some top tips on how you can effectively keep on top of your business administration.
Lists
Starting your day with a list of what you want to achieve will make you much more productive, and ensure you don’t spend half of your day thinking “Right, what’s next?”. A ‘list’ can take many forms, whichever works best for you. You could schedule times for specific tasks into your calendar, type up lists on a calendar ‘to do’ program or any other digital platform, or you might just stick to good old fashioned pen and paper. Whichever you choose, the important thing is to remember to have it ready before you start work – or even better, create tomorrow’s to do list today, allowing you to get straight on with your day.
“People now feel time accelerating. Lists allow them to feel some sense of accomplishment.” – David Viscott
Prioritise
You can’t just pick the best bits of your list, or the easy tasks or the ‘quick wins’. You need to think strategically about which tasks you should prioritise for the benefit of your business. Know what your goals (and ultimately your strategy) are and ensure that you progress through your daily admin duties with this in mind. Making sure the margins are perfectly symmetrical on your Invoice is considerably less important than actually sending the Invoice out!
“You need to prioritise. If you can’t get to everything or do everything, that’s okay.” – Julie Chen
Make The Time
Whether you choose to use your calendar for creating your list of tasks or not, the important thing to do is ensure that you make time every day/week/month to get your admin done. We all use a diary or calendar of some sort to organise ourselves on a daily basis, but it doesn’t just have to be for meetings. Block out realistic slots of time to get your admin done – and make sure you stick to them.
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Bruce Lee
Stop Offering
Do you always make the notes in meetings, do the research for shared industry reports or gather attendee information at networking events and much more…? Just because you’ve taken the time to do those things it doesn’t mean you should also be the one to add the admin task of pulling it all together to your list. Learn to say no, or share the load by asking others to help (if it’s a regular task, you could also suggest taking turns for who does it each time). Remember, you are just as busy running your business and dealing with daily administration as everybody else.
“We have to establish time boundaries and learn how to say no.” – Alexandra Stoddard
Delegate
So obvious but still something that just isn’t done by many business owners. “They’ll take too long.”, “They won’t do it right.”, “It’s easier if I do it myself.”, are all very common reasons we hear from business owners about why they choose not to delegate. The truth is, they are often so busy doing it all themselves that the tasks take days (even weeks) to be completed, or are completed on time at the expense of their personal life. It might take a little extra effort initially to delegate a new task, explaining exactly how you’d like it completed etc., but once it’s done, it can be delegated permanently.
“I find that many entrepreneurs are trying to do everything when it would be cheaper and more time-efficient to delegate, even if there are monetary costs associated with that.” – James Altucher
Eat That Frog!
If you leave the admin task you dread the most to the bottom of your list there’s a danger that it’ll never get done, or at best will be completed at the last minute when you no longer have a choice. Often, the idea of the task is much worse than actually doing it, and once it’s done, it’s done! Delaying the inevitable will only make you feel stressed and frustrated. Make the time and commit to getting it done, you’ll feel so much better when it is.
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” – Mark Twain
Looking for new and better ways to efficiently take care of your day to day admin is definitely a large part of what we do at MOMENTUM. If you’d like us to support you with your admin or just want to chat through what you currently do, we’re always happy to help. Call us on 01903 688789 or send us an email to makeithappen@mbsmih.com.