3 small business productivity hacks for 2019

As a small business owner, you may find yourself regularly wishing for more time in your day. While discovering more hours isn't possible, one New Year's resolution that comes a close second is increasing your productivity. 

What are some small business productivity hacks that can help your company get a flying start in 2019?

1. Find the right organisational tool for you

Being a small business doesn't mean that you you have any less to juggle. Keeping track of all that you have on isn't easy and can consume a lot of time, so an organisational tool that works for you is important. 

Don't feel like you need to employ something fancy if that's not the right fit for you. How you keep everything organised and running smoothly can be anything from:

• Pen and paper. 
• A product like Workflow Max, from Xero. 
• An app to track daily tasks and calendar events.

To increase your productivity use only one tool for organisation management. This keeps everything in one place for you to easily access and monitor. 

Do you have the right organisational tool to help your small business's productivity?

2. Allocate time sparingly

A general rule of thumb to consider is that if you allocate a certain amount of time to a job, you'll use it even if the task could have been completed in half that. While you don't want to overestimate what you can do, it's also important to remember that you only have a set amount of hours in a day. Don't set aside an hour for emails when you could get through the important ones in 15 minutes. 

Give your time to the essential items before anything else. Challenge yourself to learn to make fast decisions, and allocate your time sparingly to work. 

3. Build the right environment

An easy, but highly effective, productivity hack is simply creating the right environment for your work. Often you'll find yourself surrounded by distractions in your office. Take a fresh look at how you work and try doing the following:

• Make your space for work only. If you're used to doing other tasks there as well, it's easy to slip out of a productive mind state and begin doing something else instead. 
• Clear out the area of unnecessary items.
• Have what you need for work within that space, so you don't have to get distracted by leaving to go find what you require. 
• Close all but the vital tabs on your computer. Clutter and distraction on the screen influence you as much as your physical environment. 
• Minimise the easiness of any bad habits you have. For example, if you tend to work in the lounge you might have a routine of switching on the TV. By putting the remote in a drawer it will make this harder to do so, and help stop you falling into the habit. 

If you'd like more tips and tricks on increasing your small business's productivity in 2019, reach out to us today and get the new year off to a great start.