Time, precious time

You love your trade and you thought you’d follow the Kiwi dream and be your own boss, living a care free existence.

In reality though, you’re doing the same amount of hours on the tools as you were when you were working for some other bloke, but now with so many more responsibilities – paperwork, employees, bringing in work, a van breaking down, the taxman. The list goes on.

As a result, you’re tired, your relationships are strained, your health is suffering and, quite frankly, you’re run off your feet. And you’re not earning anymore than you were as a general lackey for someone else!

I’m not going to lie. Running a successful business is hard work.

That’s why we’ve written our new eBook “10 tips for busy business owners: A practical guide to running your small business better”.

It’s an easy-to-understand guide which aims to lighten your load. But, in the meantime we’ve written the tips (below) to help alleviate some stress.

Write up your job description

Sit down and write a list of all the tasks you carry out in your business. From the mundane to the high level critical stuff. Be honest. Now sort the list into three categories:

• Those important for you to do. They will be critical to the success of your business. Include things like working on the strategic direction of your business and maintaining a robust sales pipeline to bring in work for your guys. They are quite possibly things you’ve been putting off because the next two categories were taking all your time.
  
  
• Those that can be delegated to someone else, either right now or after some training.
  
  
• Those things that, in actual fact, don’t have any benefit for your business and can be abandoned. Don’t feel tempted to delegate when you could abandon.

Systemise those steps!

After compiling the above lists, imagine you were suddenly going to be away from your business. Either because you’ve sold it or, unbelievably, you’re taking your family away on a well-deserved holiday!

Are there written systems and processes in place so that someone with the appropriate skills and attitude can come into your business and take over?

If not, then set aside some time and create an operations manual with instructions for every task you and your staff carry out during the day.

Use a calendar

There are great electronic options out there that are available on all your devices and automatically sync.

Great if you are out on the run. Use your calendar to organise your week. Planning is key.

Book time for yourself during which you are focused on a particular task or – even if it is exercising!

Plan to spend your most productive hours on critical projects that will make the biggest difference. Use to-do lists and don’t have your time taken up by admin or emails.

Getting on top of your business responsibilities can seem overwhelming but once you do reaching your goals will feel more attainable.

For easy to follow advice on running a small New Zealand business check out our “10 tips for busy business owners: A practical guide to running your small business better”.

From cash-flow tips, to time management advice, the eBook covers practical information aimed at helping Kiwi business owners take control and move towards their ambitions.