Tag: business plan

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The Secrets to Time Management and Why You Need It

The most successful entrepreneurs have this key skill down to a science: time management.

It’s time to get the cold, hard and ugly truth out of the way. If you have not realized your goals and dreams yet, it’s likely your time management skills, or lack thereof, are to blame. As with any skill, there are things you can do and implement to improve it.

 

The following are the secrets to time management and why it’s a must-have skill to run a successful online business: 

 

Proper Time Management Is A Choice and A Skill You Can Practice

You can make a choice and commit to get things done on time and not procrastinate. Poor time management always stems from something, and as a responsible and successful adult, you must make the conscious choice to understand why and develop strategies to overcome it.

Scheduling to Avoid Burnout: Learn to Take More Breaks

Increases Creativity and Makes Innovation Easier

Proper time management means you have the right amount of time for the tasks and areas that matter the most. It means you are no longer wasting too much time on mundane and tedious things that don’t get you to where you need to be—freeing your time and allowing you to be more creative and innovative in your industry.

 

Take Full Responsibility and Understand Your Value

You know why you didn’t get something done on time or what is causing you to procrastinate more times than not. Please take responsibility for your actions and realize the value you bring to yourself, your business, and the world to overcome it.  

 

Schedule and Implement in Order of Importance and Urgency

This way, you can be sure to give yourself enough time for each task required. If you plan a task that needs your total concentration, knowing you will be interrupted quite a few times or need to leave soon, you simply won’t finish it. Don’t ignore reality, or you’ll set yourself up to fail before you even get started.

 

Be Aware of Your Main Objective

Always keep your main objective for the day at the top of your mind. Unfortunately, you won’t always be able to plan for everything. There will be distractions in work and life, but if you train yourself to keep your main objective on your mind at all times, you will know when and how to snap back easier.

 

Be Comfortable with Abnormality

In other words, in order to establish proper time management, you will probably have to go against what your peers or co-workers are currently doing. You have to say no to longer lunch breaks or any other activities you know will only further distract you.

 

Overall proper time management starts with taking responsibility, creating a daily to-do list, sticking to your schedule, and remove unnecessary distractions to ensure you always stay on track.

 

 

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5 Household Management Tips for Parent Business Owners

Battling the household and running an online business at the same time is hard work. A business requires just as much of your time, if not more, as do your children. Both will create more work and stress, but you can manage.

 

The following are five household management tips for parent business owners: 

 

#1: Work in Batches and Block Schedules

Keep similar work together and schedule work time in batches. If you know your kids need to get to school at a certain time, for example, schedule a block of time around that. If you can get two hours of work in before they need to get ready, then find similar activities you know you can do in that time, like checking email or creating your daily to-do lists. Block these times out in your schedule and let your household know when you plan to work. Put the schedule somewhere they can all see it and treat it no differently than you would if you were to clock in for a shift somewhere else.

 

#2: Designate Workspaces and Keep Them Out

Create an area in your house that everyone knows is only for working. Please don’t allow them to come in at any point. It may sound harsh or brutal to do at first, but over time everyone will understand that this area is not for fun, only business.

 

Establishing appropriate boundaries like this is crucial to create a distraction-free workspace. When you are in this space, you work. When you leave this space, you get to take a break or have free time and stop working. Likewise, you won’t need to work when you’re in your other spaces.

 

#3: Schedule Special Time with Your Kids Away from Business

Always add in time with your kids and put it in your schedule. This way, you know you always have time to be with them. Don’t expect yourself to use after work or school hours to do it.

basketball

If you don’t schedule it, you will give yourself permission to be distracted. You don’t have a boss to tell you to stop working. You have to set those boundaries yourself. Scheduling your personal time and time with your family is a way to ensure you stick to your work hours.

 

#4: Create Daily To-Do and Expectation Lists for You and The Household

To ensure you have the time you need to get work done, make daily to-do lists for you and the household. Include chores or fun activities they can do while you need to work. Set up timers and don’t allow them to finish until it’s done. Make sure the tasks you do can be done within these times. Don’t use this time for any critical tasks that require more of your attention.

 Don’t Forget That You Can Automate and Outsource Your Home Management Too

#5: Communicate as Much as Possible and Expect to Make Compromises

Most importantly, you must communicate. You can’t expect others to know what to do just because you work from home. Creating your own home business comes with compromises from you and the entire family. While it provides you the freedom to be a parent and make money, it can also be disrupting. As a carefree space of their home is now for business. Proper communication and not expecting perfection will go a long way to ensuring your success.

 

As you can see, running a business and your household as a parent is possible. However, you must know what it takes to set yourself up for success realistically.

 

 

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The Only Action That Matters

The only action that matters is action.  Action constitutes the work, the steps, the “action” necessary to reach your goals and aspirations. While planning and creating your vision is a vital step that many fail to account for, it’s hard to fix it.

 

People often create new plans and ideas repeatedly but never take the necessary first step or action to make it happen. As long as you create a realistic action plan for your business goals, you won’t fall into this trap.

setting goal

Here’s how to create a realistic action plan for your small business:

 

Start with A Main Objective

What is your company mission or goal in life? Highlight 3 to 5 main objectives and why they are needed to be successful.

 

Break It Down

Then take each main goal and break it down into two to five smaller actionable steps. This means you should have a different to-do list for each main objective you created earlier. If you started with three main objectives, you now have three new to-do lists.

 

Put Them In Proper Order

Next, you must put them in a timely order. Start with the most relevant or urgent tasks. Keep in mind your daily schedule or any critical meetings.

 

Create Hard Deadlines

For each goal, set a hard deadline and don’t give yourself any more time. Please add the steps and tasks you need to do to complete that goal in your calendar and let yourself and other important people know about it. This way, you are sure to follow it and get it done.

 

Understand Your Limits and Be Focused

While the saying “the sky is your limit” may sound motivational, it can be unrealistic when running a successful business. You need to be laser-focused on your overall goal, and if you believe you can get everything, you may lose focus on what truly matters for your specific business and goals.

Benefits of Creating Processes and Systems

In other words, it’s the difference between staying on a clear road or always scrummaging to “shiny object” syndrome. Shiny objects are leading you down a path of uncertainty and disorganization. Each task you do needs to support your main objective; otherwise, you are putting in more input than is productive for the amount of output generated.

 

Lower Your Expectations

Especially if you are new to this business or anything, expect less from yourself and others. If you lower your expectations about everything you do in life, you’ll be less frustrated, but you will also know to schedule more time throughout your day in case you need a little extra time as you make mistakes and learn.

 

Lastly, don’t fear the first step. Stop planning and just get going. Take the first step. Make it so easy that you can’t avoid it. Get your first customer or create an LLC. As you get going, the momentum will give you the confidence and desire to keep going.

 

 

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Benefits of Creating Processes and Systems

As you design your business, you’ll start to realize it all comes down to having dedicated systems and processes in place for the good times and the bad.

work space

Why? Well, no matter who you are or where you live, stuff happens. Weather happens. Illness happens. Heck, sometimes you just wake up, and you’re tired and don’t want to do the things you planned. Other times the crises happening seems so hard to overcome that you just don’t know what to do first, but if you create processes and systems, you can overcome most things, even a lack of motivation.

Systems and processes create:

 

  • Consistency – It might seem tedious, but if you set up a process or system in your own home to keep it clean, it will end up cleaner by setting up a schedule to clean the floor every Wednesday using a particular method instead of waiting for it to get dirty. When you know when and you know the technique, you can ensure you have the time and the right products to accomplish your goal. The same can be said for your business. If you know that at 2 pm on Tuesday, you’re going to write three blog posts about a particular topic, it’s more likely to get done.

 

  • Focus – Once you develop systems and processes, you don’t have to think about it every time. Due to this, you’ll be able to focus on doing the job instead of setting up the job each time. If you have a snow day and have plans for what to do on that snow day, you’ll focus better because you knew in advance that if a snow day happened, this is what you are going to do.

 

  • Transparency – One thing that customers like is honesty. If you can’t be honest or even if you appear to be dishonest, it can really harm your brand. If you have a plan in place, it enables you to communicate more comfortably with your audience or other stakeholders regarding what will happen than if you have no idea what your process is on a good day.

 

  • Scalability – Being able to scale your business isn’t all about scaling up. A well-planned business can expand and contract as needed without you experiencing all that much upheaval. For example, suppose your traffic goes down due to a natural disaster. In that case, your server space or email software can contract, and the price goes down, enabling you to maintain profitability and lower expenses. This idea also works with hiring contractors instead of employees. You use contractors only when you need them and don’t have to support them all the time.

 

  • Resilience – Being able to bounce back from a problem is at the core of building a resilient business. Having systems and processes in place is the first step to doing that because creating these systems and processes highlights the recourses you need to use to get the job done, allowing you to identify redundancies and new opportunities.

What Does Productivity Mean to You?

It’s easy for a singular business owner who runs their business online working from home to believe that they don’t need to set up systems and processes – but if you don’t, you’re flying by the seat of your pants. You will end up delaying your progress or even going out of business probably before you even really get started. Having systems and processes in place enables you to focus on other things every day that make an impact instead of reinventing the wheel each workday.

 

 

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What Does Productivity Mean to You?

When you think of being productive, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

Before you continue reading, briefly write it down in your journal or a notepad. Really think about your own definition before you continue. This way, you can be sure your perspective is really where it needs to be to run a productive business.

work space

Productivity has a variable definition and affects every aspect of your life, both business and personal. When you think about it, every decision you make and action you take affects your productivity somehow. Your health, creativity, journey in life, or direction of your business all depends on the type of productivity you produce.

 

In business, reaching the tasks required to achieve specific sales goals, gaining more subscribers or followers, or being the next innovator within your industry are a few examples of being productive. In your personal life, a few examples could include following a daily or weekly budget to buy a big purchase, paying bills on time or setting up auto-pay, or following a healthy exercise and diet routine such as meal planning and weightlifting.

 

While productivity can have variable perspectives and definitions depending on who you ask, it is vital to make sure that the procedures and strategies you implement lead to high rewards for your business or goal. At the same time, the effort you put into it is worth it when the results show it is worth it. This is the basic definition of productivity and can be measured with a simple math equation.

 

Productivity is equal to your output divided by your input.

 

If your effort is greater than the reward, it may not be worth it in the end. If you’ve determined the reward is good enough, then it is. All of this is really up to you to decide. However, you should use the math equation above in real life to be sure you are realistic.

 

For example, if you are a writer and you wrote six articles this morning in three hours, your productivity would be calculated as two articles per hour. You could further compare this number to your overall writing goal to see where you need to improve or work harder.

 

Another way to be sure you are the most productive is to create a list of all the activities you did each day and compare them to the goals you wish to accomplish. How do they compare? Do the tasks that you’ve chosen to do get you closer to your destination, goal, or job, support you in any way? Don’t be too shocked if many of the tasks you do end up getting you nowhere. It is easy to equate being busy to being productive.

 

Once you take a moment to evaluate your actions, you can change your plans and daily to-do lists to do what needs to be done to accomplish your business goals. Starting each day with a primary goal and to-do list, implementing proper time management strategies, and taking advantage of tools and technology are a few tips to improve your productivity throughout the day.  Remember, if you want to run a successful online business or achieve any goal, improving your productivity is a must.

 

 

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What is Business Continuity Planning?

To build resilience into your business, you’ll need to understand that your business continuity plan will provide the resilience necessary to overcome setbacks and disruptions in essence. Business continuity planning consists of examining your business for weaknesses based on known threats that may affect your ability to do business on any given day.

 

You’ll have to go through your processes, systems and examine what you do each day along with the resources you use (human and otherwise) to help you mitigate problems and issues. Business continuity planning includes:

 

  • Determining and listing possible types of distributions – You need to set up a plan for every eventuality that you can think up. Illness, lousy weather, destroyed technology, government regulations, and so forth are already known issues. Listing them out will help you figure out what you’re going to do for each of them automatically.

 

  • Studying your workflows – Part of the process includes having standardized workflows to identify bottlenecks and note the software and other resources you regularly use so that you can develop a plan if something within that system and process goes wrong. For example, if you outsource blog writing to one person and uploading the posts to another person, you can eliminate the problem of relying only on one person for everything.

 

  • Establishing key performance indicators – As you study your processes and workflow, you can also establish a few important indicators to track that can signal a problem or lead to a solution.

 

  • Setting up benchmarking – One key to overcoming a setback is to live by your data more than your gut. A combo of the gut with data is always better than just doing things without any idea of the metrics. For example, if you set up an emergency budget for your business that allows you to keep going during hard times, what is the number you need to meet? Do you know what your break-even point is?

 

  • Including redundancies – As you set up your processes and systems and examine your workflows, you can identify areas to create redundancies. For example, instead of using only one server space for your website, you can set up two, which will enable you to switch if one goes down quickly.

 

  • Developing plans – Using all the information you derive from a thorough study of your business and enabling you to keep going during hard times, you can use that information to develop concrete plans that you simply implement during a hard time instead of creating it from scratch.

 

When it comes to crisis management, having a plan in place before anything happens is essential. A proper continuity plan will include actual plans in place for the things you know will occur, such as illness, whether governmental or other issues. While you cannot plan for everything, any of these ideas can be adapted to unknown emergencies when needed. The act of planning and putting in place this plan will make your business more resilient and even eliminate many of the pitfalls that cause more than half of all businesses to fail in their first three years.

 

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Why Is Business Resilience Important?

It doesn’t matter who you are or how many resources you have available, something will happen within the next year, or so that will disrupt your business somehow. It may be a family matter, a purely business issue inside your operation, or it may be an external matter entirely out of your control – but it is going to happen.

 

Because of the certainty that disruption happens, having a plan in place that makes your business more resilient to these influences is imperative. The thing that causes problems is going to happen, and probably more than once. But no worries, if you have a plan in place, you’ll be able to build resilience into your business as you grow your business.

 

People Perform Better with a Plan

 

When disaster strikes, one thing is clear about human nature – if we have a plan that we’ve practiced, such as a fire drill, for example – it saves lives and property. If you have a plan in place for emergencies and other issues such as taking a sick day, you’ll naturally perform better due to having the plan in place.

 

To Safeguard Assets

 

As a business owner, you have numerous assets that you may not realize you have. Your email list, your website, the software you use, your products, and services that you provide are all assets in a way, some are more obvious than others, but future planning can mitigate the need to lose the critical parts of your business and life if something goes wrong.

 

This may come in the form of setting up the right business entity to protect your personal assets should the business fail for some reason, or it may come from another element in your plan, but it will work to safeguard your assets due to thinking about the potential before anything happens.

 

Increases Workflow Understanding

 

When you plan for disruptions, it requires that you develop standardized systems and plans for your business that designs workflows for yourself and your employees or contractors to follow. When you have a proper workflow, you will notice in advance the potential for disruptions and thus create a plan to avoid it. For example, what if your email autoresponder service goes out of business? What will you do? Have you identified an alternative that makes it easy for you to move over?

 

Disruptions Will Happen

 

Whether you get sick, or someone else does, or you experience a weather emergency, or killer technology destroys your business (after all, no one uses VHS tapes, now, right?), something is going to happen to disrupt your business. If you can accept that and plan for it, you’ll automatically start building a truly resilient business.

 

If you accept that things will happen to cause setbacks, whether parts of your everyday life, such as chronic illness or something out of a disaster movie (weather, pandemics, political turmoil), you can develop a plan that makes you more resilient personally as well as professionally. You probably can’t plan for every single thing, but the planning process itself will help you learn more about yourself and your business so that you can overcome, one way or another, almost anything.

What Is Business Resilience?

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10 Ways Small Business Benefits from Smart Automation

All businesses benefit from smart automation. Automation today is not expensive. You can implement much different productivity-improving automation free and inexpensively that will not just save time but will save money and increase your revenue exponentially.

 

  1. Increased Scalability – When you automate, even if you’re just one person, if you choose what to automate wisely, you’ll be able to scale your business in ways you may not have thought possible.

 

  1. Reduced Errors – There is no way around it, but machines, once set up properly, make fewer errors than humans. If you can set up an automaton that works, you’re going to reduce the errors you’re used to making and letting by. It’s not about perfection, though. It’s just about being able to do something simple without having to worry about the errors once it’s set up.

 

  1. Better Customer Satisfaction – When customers get service fast like they want, and it’s accurate and timely, they are always happier with you—today’s customers like using self-service automation and don’t mind using chatbots at all.

 

  1. Reduced Labor Costs – When you can automate instead of outsourcing, this is always a good thing because technology is cheaper than a human being. Your time is also worth way more than your chatbot’s time.

 

  1. Better Work-Life Balance – Automating things even that take you five minutes a day can add up and save you so much time that you start experiencing that elusive work-life balance people love to talk about.

 

  1. Use Resources More Efficiently – When you set up automation, it is always more efficient than human resources. Not only does it work more accurately, but it also costs less to start with than hiring a person.

 

  1. Decreased Operating Costs – When you use technology to increase productivity, you can keep your operating costs lower because you’re not using extra human resources or your time, which is always more expensive than tech.

 

  1. Improved Decision Making – If you have an accurate picture of the research involved, which using automation can help you with, you’re going to make better business decisions. Imagine if you set up a Zap to send reports generated in Google Analytics to a Dropbox for you to view every Friday – so much more straightforward than having to get the reports yourself.

 

  1. Boost Productivity – When you have to do fewer steps to get to the deliverable, you will become super productive. Remember that there is a lot more to being productive than movement or being busy. Finishing projects and tasks makes you productive.

 

  1. Increased Competitiveness – When you can get more done in less time and done accurately, you’re going to please customers more, and that’s going to make you more competitive.

 

When you decide to implement automation in your small business, choose from the things you do right now, already, that are repetitive in nature, and you can’t go wrong—no need to invent new things to do until you automate what you already do every single day.

 

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Project Management Tools to Try

When it comes to project management, the worst thing you can do is either use nothing to organize yourself or use a tool that you don’t understand enough to utilize fully. Try out a few different options to find out what works smoothly for you within your budget.

 

  • Smartsheet.com – If you’re accustomed to using spreadsheets to organize your work, this might be the system to work for your needs. It’s easily customizable, supports automation, but you do have to use other software if you want time tracking and built-in project management features.

 

  • Wrike.com – This is the PM system used by big businesses like Paypal.com and Hootsuite.com, but it’s not overpriced, so you can afford to use it too. This is a true all in one project management system that allows you to collaborate not only with contractors and employees but your customers too.

 

  • Monday.com – This platform is very helpful in managing tasks and creating impressive and effective workflows. It’s really billed as an online collaboration application, but you can use it to manage projects too. It’s very customizable and easy to understand.

 

  • Easy Projects – This cloud-based project management software works for small and big businesses. It allows you to work with anyone interested in the following projects. You can give permissions that keep people notified of the action being taken.

 

  • Zoho Projects – Competitively priced, cloud-based, fully-featured, and intuitive. This is really a standard in project management. It’s especially good with individuals and small teams. It’s responsive and not really hard to understand and set up. Try the free trial.

 

  • Basecamp.com – This option has been around for a long time. It is a popular choice among virtual assistants, graphic designers, and others who want to be able to let their customers sign-on and assign work to them in a project management system. It’s easy to understand and has tons of features you’re used to in a dedicated project management system.

 

  • Trello.com – If you think visually, you’re going to love using Trello. You can organize your workflows and teams, or you can just use it for your own organization. There are many public free and premium templates you can get too. What’s more, is you can use it free.

 

  • Honeybook.com – A super popular choice for virtual assistants and service providers, this easy-to-use platform helps small business owners get control of their processes and manage clients from start to complete projects, including proposals, contracts, project tracking, and payments.

 

  • LiquidPlanner.com – Manage projects, tasks, and human resources, and more with this fully featured project management system. Track tasks but also track resources, including HR, to best keep your company lean and mean. While this one is a little more expensive than some of the other choices, it’s well worth every penny because of what it can help you do for your business.

 

  • Asana.com – People who use Asana are fans of it and love to brag about using it. It’s a unique online collaboration tool that helps improve your workflow management. It’s not really a full project management since there is no time tracking, but many service providers love it and use it regularly.

 

  • Quire.io – This project management and collaboration tool can help you launch your projects fast. Users love the fact that it’s super intuitive and easy to understand how to use it. They use Kanban boards, which many people love, to help get organized.

 

Almost any of these choices will work for most small businesses to manage their projects and keep their work organized and on task. Being productive is about using your time wisely. Don’t use a system you don’t grasp almost immediately. Test it out, and if it’s too hard to get, move on to another one so that you are using what works with your way of thinking.

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Don’t Forget That You Can Automate and Outsource Your Home Management Too

While we are so busy talking about business automation, remember that you can boost your efficiency by also automating and outsourcing your home management too. The time saved will allow you to get more done that you really want to do for yourself, your family, and your business.

 

  • Lights – With a smart house set up, you can fix your lighting so that it stays at a specific level of natural light. For example, if you close the shade and the light has reduced, the lighting in the room automatically compensates. You can also turn on lights via a motion sensor at night when people are using the toilet and so forth.

 

  • Door Locks –Using automated door locking is a great feature and helps you get in your home with packages. You can also lock your front and back doors or garage using your smartphone instead of checking physically.

 

  • Security Cameras – Setting up security in your home with cameras can also be automated once it’s set up. You can film the parts of the house you want based on motion, lighting, sound, and other criteria.

 

  • Blinds – Close your blinds based on how dark or light it is outside. Even if you’re not home, the blinds will close, which can make your home less likely to be broken into but also reduces the time you must take to raise and lower the blinds on your own.

 

  • Heating and Cooling –Setting up your heating and cooling to be based on the ideal temperature for you based on the room and time of year will not just save time but money too.

 

  • Filling Your Tub – Newer smart homes come featured with a smart bathtub that can be programmed to fill up at the right time without you ever going in there using your smartphone or the control dial. Set up a hot bath when you’re outside sledding with the kids to save time and get warm faster.

 

  • Starting Your Coffee – If you like to drink coffee in the morning or at any time, set up your coffee maker to automatically brew your coffee for you. When you get out of bed, you will eliminate a few steps from your day.

 

  • Paying Your Bills – Just like you can set up your business bills to be paid automatically, you can do the same with your household bills. Setting up automation for saving, bill paying, and so forth not only saves time but will help you stick to your budget better.

 

  • Sending Birthday or Holiday Cards – Do you like to send your friends, family, and perhaps business partners cards in the mail? You can use a service like Send Out Cards or Postable.com to automate this process by setting up an account and the criteria.

 

  • Yard and Housekeeping – It’s not hard to hire people to help you keep your home clean and organized, from landscaping to basic lawn care to keeping your home clean and shiny without lifting a finger. You can find what you need through sites like Thumbtack.com and Care.com.

yard and housekeeping

  • Childcare – Even a work at home mom needs time away from the kids. You can find a mommy’s helper, or you can hire a childcare worker or teenager to help you with your kids using Care.com or other online sites.

 

  • Grocery Shopping – Using a service like Instacart.com to get your groceries delivered can save hours of your time and help you avoid last-minute purchases, thus actually saving money over shopping yourself.

 

If you have a voice assistant like Google or Alexa, you may already have the ability to automate some of your home life. Take a look at what’s available with your particular assistant and the tools you have. When you eliminate personal steps in a process and turn it over to a bot, you save time and generate an opportunity to do more with that time.