Five Tips

5 Simple Productivity Tips

Being a small business owner is hard, even moreso if you’re working a 9-5 too! It can be especially difficult to try and get everything done in one day, so  here are 5 productivity tips

Use Your Commute

On average, UK workers spend 41 minutes commuting each day, in some areas it is a lot more. If you get the train, bus or taxi to work – that time could be very well spent. Those little finicky tasks that don’t take a long time (ie scheduling Social Media) can be done while you’re on the go. You can even invoice on the go! As the old phrase says…. There’s an app for that!

If you drive to work, consider listening to podcasts related to your industry in the car. I enjoy listening to The Ask Gary Vee Show as it covers a wide variety from entrepreneurship to marketing to sports – and often has niche questions answered. If you’re looking for more Kent based business radio shows, check out Kent Business Radio.

Start With The Hard Stuff

“If you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, you’ve got it behind you for the rest of the day, and nothing else looks so bad” – Mark Twain

Quite often you put off the hardest tasks until last, and they’re looming over you all day. Some people even work slower to avoid doing it that day and to pass it onto the next. Instead, tackle the hardest tasks first as then everything else will feel much easier and your day will flow smoother. As you already have momentum, you’re likely to finish tasks quickly too.

Organise Your Emails

Organise your email inbox so your emails are filtered into different folders, and then allocate time in the day to go through each folder. This way, your emails are all organised plus you won’t have to spend a lot of time at once poring through your inbox. Also avoid having email notifications on as this can distract you from the task at hand.

For example, at 9am you go through orders, at 12pm you check contact form enquiries, at 3pm you check newsletters etc…

We have found a great guide to organising your inbox here

Focus On One Thing (Stop Multitasking!)

Did you know, it is physically impossible for our brains to multitask? Multitasking actually splits the brain, instead of focusing on all 5 tasks you’re trying to do it quickly switches between each of them. The Energy Product Audit found that 69% of us cannot focus on one thing at a time, and are constantly distracted by other tasks (like email). Over time, we become worse at filtering out irrelevant information and also less productive. Some even sayit can lower your IQ.

To stop your self from subconsciously trying to multitask, turn off any noisy notifications when you are not focusing on that task. You’ll notice when you begin working on one thing at a time, things will get done quicker, more efficiently and can even be a better standard.

Get Your Sleep

You may think you’re getting more done by staying up late to do more work, but it actually has an adverse affect on our performance and our memory. We pretty much all need somewhere between 7 and 9 hours sleep each night, sounds a lot right? But to be more productive we actually need to spend more time not working than we are working.

Taking naps during the day has also been proved to improved cognitive function, increased engagement and positivity at work.