5 Business Productivity Hacks To Save You Time
Business productivity hacks will help you to increase productivity, improve cash flow, liaise better with suppliers, streamline your supply chain, and be more responsive.
Every business owner can benefit from becoming more time-efficient. Whether you want to speed up tasks in order to get other tasks done or whether you simply want more free time outside of work, these five business productivity hacks will help you to free up those precious hours.
Don’t travel to meetings – use videoconferencing
There’s no need to spend time and money travelling back and forth to meetings. Nowadays, videoconferencing software such as Skype has made it possible to hold face-to-face meetings with people across the world without having to leave one’s desk.
You can also conduct job interviews this way, host conferences and even organise guided tours. Next time someone wants to arrange a meeting, consider recommending this form of communication.
Speed up dull admin tasks with software
There are many admin tasks such as accounting and paying staff that can be hugely time-consuming. However, there are many programmes such as this ELMO software that can speed up these tasks.
Software can automate and efficiently organise processes such as your payroll and bookkeeping, reducing errors as well as saving you time.
You can find the best software by reading comparison guides online, downloading free trials and attending software demos.
Streamline your supply chain
If you use lots of different suppliers, you could find that paying these suppliers and communicating with them takes up a lot of your free time.
There are business productivity hacks to streamline your supply chain so that it’s easier to manage. You could do this by either taking on fewer suppliers or by simply outsourcing to a supply chain management company.
A business such as Logility can organise all your supplier bills into one single bill that you pay each month. This could dramatically speed up the process of paying your suppliers.
Outsource a phone answering service
If you’re constantly being interrupted by incoming phonecalls, consider whether it’s worth outsourcing a phone answering service such as The Answering Centre.
These are paid professionals who can take care of general enquiries, filter out sales calls and record important information to then pass on to you.
This could save you huge amounts of time usually spent on the phone, allowing you to get other tasks done more quickly. One of the simple business productivity hacks that will make better use of your valuable time.
Schedule set hours for answering emails
This is one of my favourite business productivity hacks. Emails can also be an interruption; however they needn’t be. Rather than trying to answer emails throughout the day, schedule set hours at the beginning and end of your day for managing your inbox.
In most cases, emails will not need urgent replies – if something really is urgent, that person can always ring you anyway. If you’re worried about important information, you could leave an auto-reply during certain time periods.
For example, when you’re not checking your inbox ask people to ring you with urgent information. If you’re also outsourcing a phone call answering service, this will help you to filter out general enquiries from urgent news.
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