Five Productivity Tips for Your Small Business

As a small business owner, the success of your business lies solely on your shoulders. You not only need to manage your resources wisely but also ensure that your team members are efficient as well. To make productivity a key part of your company’s culture, it’s important to lay out your expectations for yourself and your team and monitor results periodically.

Here are five ways you and your team can become more productive.

1. Create email rules.
Imagine you’re working on an important document and your email keeps buzzing every few minutes. How much does that distraction cost you in time and the quality of work you do? Consider setting specific hours for emails and communicate that with your team members so they know what to expect of you as well as of each other. Communication is healthy so long as it doesn’t hamper productivity.

2. Set up morning huddles.
Meeting for just 15 minutes at the start of the shift can go a long way. Not only is this a great opportunity for team bonding but it also helps to communicate the daily goals, discuss issues and answer queries. Having each member take turns in managing the discussion will ensure your team feels that their voices are being heard and ideas seriously considered.

3. Create to-do lists.
It helps to use tools such as Google Calendar and Reminder to create to-do lists and collaborate with team members by sharing expectations and meeting periodically to check progress. Each time you check off an item from your to-do list, it creates a satisfying feeling of accomplishment. Use this positive feedback cycle to keep yourself going throughout the day.

4. Prioritize.
Ask yourself: If you could only accomplish one task today, what would it be? When you know what’s the first priority of the day, work on it as though there is nothing else to do. Once you’ve completed the task, ask yourself the same question again and repeat the process. Remember, multi-tasking used to be considered a golden method of getting many tasks done simultaneously. However, recent studies have suggested that multi-tasking is not the most efficient way of getting work done.

5. Be flexible.
Striving for high levels of productivity shouldn’t make you overlook the human factor in the business you run. There will be times when you might not feel your best and the same goes for your team members. Being the boss doesn’t mean you have to be stiff and strict. There are many successful leaders today that work with the attitude of rolling with the punches.