Of all the resources companies monitor and allocate on a regular basis, time is perhaps the most important one. In the business world, saving time can also mean saving money, and time can often be the difference between a happy customer and an angry one or a successful launch and a failed one. This makes finding ways to save time a top priority for any entrepreneur.
To help their own companies save time, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have implemented a few productivity hacks of their own. Below, they each discuss their chosen strategy as well as what other companies can do to benefit from it.
1. Prioritize Using An Eisenhower Matrix
We implement the Eisenhower Matrix when managing projects or tasks and it has helped us greatly improve our productivity. It’s a project management mechanism that has allowed us to prioritize our tasks by focusing on two important factors: importance and urgency. It’s a pretty self-explanatory model to implement in a company and doesn’t require you to conduct extensive training to educate your team. – Chris Klosowski, Easy Digital Downloads
2. Use Project Management Tools To Help Plan Your Week
We use a project management tool to break down recurring and project-based tasks for every team member. We require that each team member plans their week ahead and checks future tasks to ensure they have everything they need to execute with minimal back and forth. This type of management decreases day-to-day communication and helps us hit deadlines. – Libby Rothschild, Dietitian Boss
3. Encourage Time Blocking
Time blocking is the most useful strategy to maximize productivity. To use this tactic, encourage your team to block off continuous periods of time that are pre-scheduled for high-priority tasks and then ensure that time is spent working on those tasks. This creates blocks of meetings and blocks of free time, allowing everyone to have a schedule with extended periods of uninterrupted time to focus. – Arian Radmand, IgnitePost
4. Leverage Asynchronous Video Messaging
“Loom, not Zoom” is a catchphrase for our team! This means we use asynchronous video messaging for everything that doesn’t require real-time discussion. This eliminates unnecessary meetings, improves efficiency, allows for flexible schedules and, most importantly, over time this approach has built us a library of videos that are now being used for training and support that continue to save us time. – Devesh Dwivedi, Devesh Dwivedi
5. Ensure Everyone Takes Regular Breaks
Sometimes one can get so focused on work that one hits the point of exhaustion, which can affect work productivity. Scheduling micro-moments to step away from the daily grind and unwind can help you relax and get back to your tasks. Other companies can encourage employees to take breaks, especially amid stringent deadlines, to improve productivity rather than suffer burnout. – Brian David Crane, Spread Great Ideas
6. Automate Repetitive Tasks
Automating repetitive tasks has saved our team countless hours. We use multiple tools to get the repetitive tasks off people’s hands. Things like social media posting, emailing, campaign management and even some aspects of content production are draining and daunting, but also absolutely necessary. We “outsourced” them to technology and this is the best decision we’ve ever made. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
7. Empower Your Teams With Project Autonomy
A productivity hack that’s been working for us is that we’ve empowered our teams to design their workflows and have end-to-end responsibility for projects. Of course, we’ve clearly communicated our vision, but it’s the teams that come up with the action plan and strategies to achieve the set milestones. This has saved a lot of time as there are fewer strategy and follow-up meetings. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
8. Establish Clear Goals And Pathways
You can substantially improve productivity at a company level by establishing clear goals and pathways. Some employees work fine on their own, but others need structure to be at their most productive. Instead of saying, “I want us to have 10,000 Twitter followers,” explain how you want the team to accomplish this task. Setting clear paths for your team will save time and crush self-doubt. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
9. Set ‘Rocks’ On A Weekly Basis
We are currently trying a policy of setting “rocks,” or personal goals, related to projects and assignments on a weekly basis. Then we schedule a weekly meeting to talk about these rocks and if they are doable within a set deadline. It saves time when new clients sign on or we have potential opportunities that require time investments. Companies can do the same with weekly meetings and goals. – Duran Inci, Optimum7
