Are you an entrepreneur that works almost exclusively at home? Do you find it difficult to manage your business because you’re spending a lot of time looking at spreadsheets, crunching numbers, and doing administrative tasks instead of actually growing your business? If this is the case, then we’ve got a handful of smart time-saving tips to help you be more efficient with your time.
Finding more time to grow your business as an entrepreneur
Starting out as an entrepreneur can be rather comfortable for some people. Getting your business website up and running and establishing yourself with a profile is fairly simple. You could even start making sales in as little as a week if you’re dedicated and have a lot of friends and family members to network with.
However, the first problem comes when you realize that you have to balance maintaining your business with growing it.
You’ll start to realize that it’s virtually impossible to dedicate all of your time to growing your business because it increases the number of administrative tasks that you have to deal with. As you try to grow your business and get more customers, you’ll find yourself struggling to balance the amount of time you spend.
This is why it’s important to try and find more time to spend on actually growing your business. It’s all about managing your time correctly but also finding ways to delegate tasks or speed them up.
Outsourcing can be a huge time saver
One of the biggest ways to save time is to start outsourcing. In other words, delegating your tasks so that you have more time to focus on important growth-related tasks. This could be marketing, networking, or even developing a new product. You could consider using an IT service provider to help you manage the cloud technologies that you use, or you could even hire an accountant a few times each week to help you manage your finances. You can also delegate creative tasks such as designing a logo, a website, or even a copywriter to help you create website content. If you’re based in New York, or in fact anywhere in the States, use one of the top accounting firms in nyc to look after your accounts. They will actually save you money and time in the long run.
There are plenty of options to consider when it comes to outsourcing, so don’t be afraid to reach out to a service to see how they can help you save time. Just remember that if they’re charging too much money, then it’s perfectly fine to say no for now, but keep their services in mind so that you can use them to save time in the future.
Making efficient use of your current technology
A lot of people that are interested in becoming entrepreneurs will find that their tech skills and experience will limit their productivity. One of the keys to improving your productivity is harnessing the potential of the software and hardware that is available to you. This means using all of the available features to their maximum potential. There are many ways to do this, but here are a couple of simple examples to help you save time:
- Instead of repeating the same tasks over and over again, you can assign functions and macros within programs to speed up repeatable tasks. In fact, you can condense multiple keystrokes into a single button using macro functions, thus saving you time and reducing the number of errors you face.
- You can automate certain tasks within programs that you already own. For instance, Google Sheets allows you to set formulas and perform complex calculations within the spreadsheet cells. Many new entrepreneurs don’t realise that Google Sheets has advanced functionality like this. Using it correctly can help you harness the full power of the software to create powerful spreadsheets that can automate calculations.
- Cloud-based software can be a great substitute for using software on your computer. This is especially helpful if you’re using a rather low-powered computer that doesn’t have great hardware. By remoting into a more powerful computer that you rent, you can take advantage of better hardware to perform intensive tasks such as rendering videos, compiling code, and even serving files to a website.
Making use of your current technology is extremely important if you want to become a more successful entrepreneur. It saves you a surprising amount of time and it’ll make running your business a lot easier. However, it does require you to either hire a third party to assist you, or you need to get out of your comfort zone as an entrepreneur and start focusing on the more tech-focused side of running your business. Either way, it’s well worth your time to invest in your business tech.