As business owners, we are always wearing multiple hats. From completing administrative tasks to maintaining client relations we have to take the lead with everything at some point. There may come a point where you feel overwhelmed. When you can’t remember the last time you went out for a drink with your friends or taken your husband out for dinner. It’s ok. It happens to every business owner at some point. What’s important is understanding when you have lost the balance between your work and personal life and to then make an active decision to regain that healthy balance. When starting on this journey back to balance business can feel overwhelming. Our #1 tip to all business owners is to focus on tasks within your area of control.
By focusing on tasks you are comfortable with and know you can complete in a timely matter you can use your skills to your advantage. When you have tasks which feel overwhelming you may be more apt to procrastinate or complete them in poor quality. You have to get smart. To bring in the help and procedures you need to streamline tasks.
When you have an overabundance of work, delegate, delegate, delegate. If you are a one-man show or have a much smaller team consider outsourcing these additional tasks. Not only will the tasks get completed in a timely manner but they will be of better quality as they have been completed by a skilled individual, instead of a highly-stressed business owner working outside of their main skill set.
If you do not have employees to delegate work to or are working with a small budget consider using resources such as Fivver or Upwork to complete the tasks, these websites offer freelance professionals with varying degrees of skill and price points.
Now that you have most of the work off of your plate, it is time to create detailed processes and procedures to ensure you and your team stay afloat during higher work periods. Talk with your team, understand their working methods, listen to how they work best and implement procedures which will allow yourself and your team to work efficiently. Implementing management tools to the entire team will help keep everyone on the same page. In addition, using apps such as Calendly may seem mundane but can provide you and your employees the group organization required to work effectively.
Once you have the new procedures in order make sure to track their progress. Return on Time Invested (ROTI) is by far one of the most important factors to measure your operations. For example, spending one hour today finding an administrative assistant on Fivver, who will save you 0.5 hours a month will yield you a ROTI of 600% in year 1.
In all running, a business can be tough and it is easy to let your business inch into your personal life. By delegating tasks, introducing new procedures as well as tracking your new systems you can ensure your business will stay on top. In the end, this will allow you the time needed to step away from your work and invest in your personal life.
