Administration

Working Smarter, Not Harder

MOMENTUM Business Support Administration, Business Support
A hand placing some colourful post it notes on a white wall which display different tasks

The age-old adage that is used by many business owners across the globe. But what does it really mean and how can you ensure you’re being as efficient as possible.

Working ‘smartly’ (or efficiently) quite simply means doing the right task in the best way, without wasting any time or effort. The best way to do that? Plan, measure and prioritise…

I’m sure you’ve heard it many times, but planning for tomorrow today is the number one key to a productive day. (If you don’t do anything else suggested here, I guarantee this will immediately make you more efficient.) 

Still, if you want to be the ‘smartest worker’, please keep reading!

It’s great to have a plan or to do list for tomorrow (to avoid procrastination and hit the ground running), but without understanding how long a task might take, or knowing their value and priority, there will still be efficiency gaps.

Take the time to actively measure how long (averagely) each task needs. They might be daily, weekly, monthly or even annually. But in most cases, they will all be a repeat of something you’ve done before (or will become that way as your business endures). Once you know this, you’ll be able to start mastering your daily plan. 

Next, prioritise and add a value to each of the tasks. For example; a 1, 2, 3 priority scale in conjunction with an income earning scale (0, £, ££ or £££). This will help you determine which tasks to tackle first in the day and which could roll over to the following day if necessary – or even be removed entirely! 

Nothing is simple when running a business, there will always be other distractions that pop up, so plan for those too. Emails and calls for example (measure the average time you spend on these). They will invariably come in at random times throughout the day, disturbing your flow and impeding your efficiency! But you can stop them. Plan times into your day for checking emails and for taking/ returning calls. As long as you communicate this to your team and clients, no-one will be disappointed or frustrated.

This blog was originally featured in Issue 17 of Worthing & Adur Chamber Of Commerce’s Connect Magazine: Read it here.

‘Conveyer Belt’ Your Way To Saving Time

MOMENTUM Business Support Administration, Business Support
Navy alarm clock standing on a white desk infront of a plant

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.

Passing The Baton – 45 Tasks You Could Outsource

MOMENTUM Business Support Admin, Administration, Business Support, Digital Marketing, Event Management, Finance, HR and Recruitment, PA, Project Management, Research
Hands typing on the keyboard of a white laptop

When you pass tasks that you are finding time consuming on to your virtual assistant, it leaves time and space for your company to grow. Your focus can return to what you do best – running your business. You may not have been aware of the incredible number of tasks that you could outsource, so here are just some of them that we offer to give you an idea…

VOICEMAIL CHECKING – Does your phone get full of voicemails? We can keep you up to date.

APPOINTMENT MAKING – Conducting calls to existing and prospective clients to make appointments.

DIARY MANAGEMENT – Keeping you and your diary up to date.

EMAIL MANAGEMENT – Sorting, cleansing and replying on your behalf.

DATA INPUTTING – We can help you keep your business records up to date and accurate.

SERVER AND ONLINE FILING – It’s easy for your server and online files to get out of hand. We can make sure that they stay clear and consistent throughout.

PREPARE TRAINING MATERIALS – Running training events or meetings can be time consuming with the amount you have to prepare. Whether that’s PowerPoint presentations or questionnaires, we can help.

COMPILING MEETING MINUTES – Attending meetings can take huge chunks of time out of your day, so the last thing you want to be doing is compiling meeting minutes, which can take up even more of your time. We can compile meeting minutes for you.

LEGAL FORM COMPLETION – We can take the process of completing necessary legal forms away from you by taking care of this remotely. One less thing for you to worry about.

FORM CREATION – Forms can be useful tools to gather information. We can help create these for you.

PREPARING PRESENTATIONS – Preparing an engaging, well laid out presentation can take time. Our malicious attention to detail and keen eye for design can take care of this for you.

DATABASE CLEANSING – Keep your database free of irrelevant documents with our database cleansing service.

EXCEL DATABASE CREATION – We love a good spreadsheet! If you need one created, look no further than MOMENTUM.

REPORT CREATION – Need daily, weekly or monthly reports but don’t have the time in your day to create them? Pass the task on to us.

 DOCUMENT CREATION – Need a specific type of document created, but not sure how to do it, or simply don’t have the time? Let us help you out.

ONLINE RESEARCH – Collecting data via the internet.

CUSTOMER RESEARCH – Gathering information about your customers’ needs and preferences.

KEYWORD RESEARCH – Research into keywords that people enter into search engines relating to your business.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS – An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. 

TWITTER SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT – We are experts in the ‘twittersphere’. We’ll help you stay connected sharing relevant, frequent and direct messages to your followers. We help clients in a number of industries reach their target market in 280 characters or less!

FACEBOOK SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT – Our skilful social media gurus can help you gain organic page likes on this popular social networking site, making sure details of your offerings and expertise reach prospects and existing customers.

LINKEDIN SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT – We can help you reach even more businesses and contacts. Let us start building your business presence on LinkedIn by creating your Company Page, attracting followers, and posting regular updates to drive engagement.

PINTEREST SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT – Pinterest is a great social network for sharing details of your images and videos – including links, making this the perfect platform for us to promote and visualise your products and services.

BLOG CREATION – Helping you to get regular messages and insightful content to your online audiences.

PROOF READING – We can read over everything you’ve written, checking for errors and ensuring your grammar and tone are consistent.

COPYWRITING – If you’re creating or updating a website, we can help by creating bespoke keyword focussed copy.

EMAIL CAMPAIGNS – Targeted messaging, monthly updates, one off communication and much more.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION – We can help you to achieve high ranking search results.

CONTACT DATA – Turning your business cards and other contacts lists into functional databases.

NEWSLETTERS – Regular digital communications providing key updates and marketing opportunities.

BUSINESS LISTINGS – Getting your business noticed and supporting your SEO strategy.


CREDIT CONTROL – Building relationships with your customers to improve your cashflow.

REDUNDANCY AND TUPE – We can provide specialist employer advice on making employees redundant, dealing with business transfers, or changes to service provisions within your business.

DISCIPLINARY AND GRIEVANCE – We can support you with developing a disciplinary or grievance procedure, or to provide advice and support when managing an employee disciplinary or grievance case.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT – We can support you throughout your organisational changes to allow you to focus on your day to day business.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT – We can provide you with specialist advice or training on managing performance, and we can support you with developing an effective performance appraisal system.

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION – We can help you with writing job specifications, job descriptions, recruitment selection frameworks and support you through the selection procedure. We can provide job offer paperwork and contracts of employment, and even support you on your induction procedure.

CONTRACTS AND EMPLOYEE HANDBOOKS – We can review your existing contracts, policies and procedures to ensure they are up to date with current legislation requirements. We can also tailor our templated frameworks and policies to suit and protect your business.

HEALTH AND SAFETY POLICIES – We can review your existing policies and procedure to ensure they are up to date with current legislation. We can also tailor our templated frameworks and policies to suit and protect your business.

INVOICE CREATION – Creating and generating your invoices for your customers and clients.

SENDING INVOICES – Ensuring your invoices are sent regularly and on time.

CASHFLOW FORECASTING – Ongoing predictions based on historical data.

 PROJECT MANAGEMENT – Planning, organising, staffing, leading or directing and controlling your project.

 PROJECT SUPPORT – Assisting with any aspect of your projects, and supporting managers.

 EVENT MANAGEMENT – Contacting and liaising with suppliers, gathering information needed for the events and finding the best prices. Planning, organising and managing your events – what, when, where, how, who. Researching venues and suppliers, finding the best venues and suppliers to fit with your event and budget.

We pride ourselves on adding value to every single task that we undertake. Whether you need your admin organised and taken off your hands, a virtual PA to keep you and your business on track or more substantial support with your HR, projects or events, we are here to make sure you can make it happen..

E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com  /  T: 01903 688789.

6 Ways to Spring Clean Your Business

MOMENTUM Business Support Admin, Administration, Business Support, Digital Marketing
A field of yellow flowers at sunset

Want to listen instead? Click here

Spring has officially sprung! It’s the time of year to review and refresh, so we’ve pulled together some ways you can Spring Clean Your Business.

Update your website

Your website is the heart of your business. Is it giving the impression you want? Take time to review your website as a visitor and make any relevant changes. Could your copy do with being vamped up? Have you updated your website to include new services or products that you’re now offering? Do you need to remove any out of date information? These small changes will make all the difference – it’s just about taking some time out to actually do it!

Organise your emails

This is something we often put off time and time again, but what a difference it makes when we do it. Purge old emails (just think – do you really need to keep this?), Organise emails that you need to keep with the use of folders and subfolders and unsubscribe from any e-newsletters that you receive that you’re not interested in receiving anymore. This should make your inbox look a little less daunting!

Check your links

How often do you check the links included on your website, email signatures and social media profiles? Probably not at often as you should. If you manage to come across a rare spare 10 minutes in your working day, use this time to make sure that your links are still working and that they are pointing visitors to the correct place. This may not be the most entertaining of tasks, but very much worth doing every now and then.

Refresh your Social Media

Take a look at all of your social media account analytics and review them. Is the content that you’re sharing working? Are you over-selling? Do you need to interact with your followers more to give that ‘human touch’? Look back at your original social media strategy, this will help you to refocus.
Freshen up your social media visuals – it may be time to create a new profile icon or header to replace your current outdated one. We understand that as a small business owner you may not have these actions at the top of your priority list, but paying attention to this information and making small changes will really help your online presence moving forwards.

Revisit your business plan and goals

So, you had a business idea, created your business plan, officially started your business and it has gone from strength so strength. So you don’t need your business plan anymore, right? Wrong. You will always need your business plan – it’s the structure of how you built up your small business. You should look back at your business plan yearly and update it to keep up with your business growth and to help track if you are achieving your set ambitions and goals.

Get Cleaning!

Finally, how often do you actually get to clean your office space? Whether you work from home or in a shared office, tidy up your workspace. Eliminate any old paperwork from your desk by filing it away or shredding it. Sharpen your pencils, buy new pens that actually work and clean your computer. It doesn’t bear thinking about how many germs collect on keyboards!

If your business could do with a few extra hours in the day, we can help with our services. The best bit? You’ll only pay for the support that you need. Get in touch and make it happen today by dropping us an email makeithappen@mbsmih.com or giving us a call on 01903 688789.

Getting Things Done More Effectively

MOMENTUM Business Support Admin, Administration, Business Support
Two people working together at a wooden desk with two open laptops and a shared paper document which they are writting on

Want to listen instead? Click Here

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