Time wasters can be the downfall of any business, especially if you are a solo entrepreneur. This article will cover seven things that waste tons of time and do not give you anything in return. You'll learn to save time and keep your business growing.
Top 7 Time Wasters
1. Rabbit Trails: Here is how it goes, you get a great idea, and you jot it down and start writing out a business plan and who you want on the team. You write out the idea as much as you can, dreaming of the cash that will be flooded upon you when you launch this. An hour or two later, you look up and the work you were working on is still there. Yes, that boring work is staring at you like Gieco Money.
The cure: Get small notebook to jot down ideas and the basic nuggets for later. Just in case that idea really can make you $1 million dollars, you don't want to lose it.
2. To do lists: they just never, never, never, never, never ever end! You add to them daily, you add what you left out last week or last year. Most items have no priority. They are supposed to help but end up as stress-inducing time wasters.
The cure: Have a project list instead; then with each project, list what has to be done for that project. You can focus better and monitor exactly where your project is.
3. Deciding: You have a lunch appointment and somehow you wind up volunteering to find out which place is midway and priced correctly and has the food you can both eat without someone violating dietary restrictions, having a gastric emergency or getting a rash.
The Cure: Let them decide. Once you agree to the time and write it in your calendar, tell them to pick the place and you just show up. If you look at the address and feel like that's too far to go for that meeting, cancel it and talk by phone. Re-evaluate why you wanted to meet face to face. Sometimes personal appointments are just time wasters. If it's not going to create real business for you, why are you doing it?
4. Searching Craigslist: You want to find that one thing. Your business can use it, you can use it, and you know someone on Craigslist must be selling it cheap! You look on Craigslist for what you want, like everyone tells you to, trying to save money. Six hours later, you feel like you know Craig personally; however, you still have not found your item, and because people are constantly listing new items, you have to keep refreshing.
The Cure: Get a FREE Craigslist reader and use it - it can sort for you while you do something else. It also keeps you from getting caught up in the scam ads - major time wasters!
5. Doing everything yourself: You are overwhelmed, because your marketing finally paid off. You have got great new customers coming in, and you are ready to pull what is left of your hair out!
The Cure: Virtual Assistants. Be clear on what you want done and know how long it should take someone, so that they are not charging you by the hour for nothing. Also, if they have any contact with customers, make several calls to them and listen to how they answer the phone. You want that person to help you continue to grow, not kill the growth.
6. The Telephone: You look over your schedule and realize you are spending too much time on the phone that is not productive.
The Cure: Timers. When you get on a call put on a timer, when it goes off, let the person know you'll have to pick this up again later, because you need to move on to your next appointment. This will train people to get right to the point when they talk to you and not waste your time. (If the problem is YOU and not them, it will help YOU get to the point, get it?)
7. Distractions: Depending on what you are doing and where you work, anything can be a distraction. The phone is not a distraction for me, as I never feel compelled to answer it if I’m busy. I can let it ring until it goes to voice mail. If you are unlike me and feel like you have to pick up each call, turn the ringer off, so you can focus on finishing your task. That also goes for e-mail, Tweetdeck and anything else that would make you stop what you are doing and do something else.
The truth is this: multi-tasking does not work. I will not go into the brain science that proves it; this is something you can find for yourself. You have to remove what distracts YOU. It's about YOU, not me, or anyone else. Do not let anyone give you a distractions list - make it yourself, and start removing them one by one.
Get rid of your time wasters and watch your productivity grow by leaps and bounds.
