5 Effective Techniques to Get More Done in Less Time

People often say that once you have started your small business you can pretty much forget about your wife, girlfriend, kids, friends or everyone else that matter in your personal life. We tend to disagree. While it is true that running a business is no small task – they don’t call the owners Chief Everything Officer for no reason – there are ways by which you can get more done in less time and have time left to enjoy those personal moments.
Here are five techniques we have found useful in our experience in running the previous business as well as the current one.

1. Prioritize
   While everything that you need to accomplish may seem like a priority; the reality is you cannot possibly do them all at the same time. Figure out which tasks are more important than others and finish them first. The priority can be based on the importance (cost of not doing it); deadline (imposed by others in some cases) or time required (how long it is expected to take).
2. Document the Processes
   Documenting the process helps you delegate tasks to others rather than having to do them yourself. If there are seemingly complicated and time-consuming tasks that need to be completed on a periodic basis (e.g. paying bills, doing the inventory) it is better to write down detailed instructions for the tasks. This way you can hand it over to someone. Another benefit of writing down the steps is that there is less room for error even when it is handled by different or less competent people.
3. Delegate
   It is a human nature for some people to do everything themselves. While this can work for a brief time; you cannot sustain this for an extended period. Find out the tasks that you feel comfortable delegating to someone by using the steps 1 and 2 above. It is better to assign them specific tasks; while still giving overall context for the tasks. Also, give them deadline by which the task needs to be completed. For example, ask them to package an item in a box so that it can be shipped along with 5 other boxes in the next 30 min. See what we mean? If there are tools or other people that could be useful to them in completing the tasks give it to them.
4. Keep To-do List
   Have you come across a situation where you think you are forgetting to do something; but can’t recall what it is? Creating a to-do list is sure to help you not get in that type of situations. The key is to update the list throughout the day as you are finishing off certain tasks and coming across new ones. Although there are number of tools available to keep the to-do list; the best I have found is a plain old pen and paper.
5. Do NOT Multi-Task
   This may seem counter-intuitive at first. Doing more than one task at the same time is supposed to help you accomplish more. However, research shows that when you are trying to do several things at the same time you end up not doing either one well and may have to go back to do them again; ending up with more time spent overall. Harvard Business Review has an article on the pitfalls of multi-tasking. The brain needs to spend extra effort and time when switching between tasks.

Have you found any other useful techniques you want to share with us? Let us know in the comments.