Increasing Productivity by Avoiding Wasted Time

It can often feel in business as though the name of the game is productivity. Of course, you can’t force better results from your business by simply insisting that people work harder but by finding ways to make your business as efficient as possible. Creating genuinely productive conditions is likely your goal much of the time. There will be hinderances that you can’t control that prevent you from doing this at times, but there will also be occasions where you can streamline these conditions yourself.

There is only so much time in the day and making sure that both you and your staff spend it the right way can make a big difference when it comes to finding the rhythm of the day.

Areas You Can Outsource

There is a limited amount to what you can realistically achieve – which can be frustrating when you constantly feel as though you’re struggling to get enough done. In this case, looking to areas of your work or business that can be outsourced might free up your own time considerably, allowing you to focus on what you need to do while these outsourced areas come back to you with suitably professional results.

You might think to do this in some areas anyway, for instance video content production if you’re looking to produce marketing material that meets a certain standard and you’re not entirely confident of reaching the quality in-house. That’s not the only option, though, and outsourcing the hiring and employment of your staff could save you a considerable amount of time once you consider how companies like PEOs could even take care of responsibilities such as payroll and HR. That being said, when looking to increase productivity in the workplace, part of it might have a strong financial incentive, so understanding how much does a PEO cost can help you fit it into your budget.

Avoid Unnecessary Meetings

The temptation to organize meetings that gather everyone together and get them on the same page might be pretty strong at times, especially if you feel that things in your business aren’t going the way that you want them to. It can also be a way for you to check in on everyone else at once and see how it’s all going, but these regular, needless meetings can take a toll on the time that your employees have for their jobs. Taking them away from what they’re doing just disrupts whatever rhythm or flow that they had going before, and some of them might take issue with the idea of being regularly checked in on to begin with. You might think it’s only once or twice a week, but if everyone in the team has this mentality that’s easily a day or two lost solely to meetings.

That’s not to say that there is never a place for meetings, and they can be a good way of uniting people or providing fresh information that pushes everyone in a positive direction. However, understanding the difference can help you to cut back. You should always have an agenda and an actionable outcome from a meeting. Perhaps instead of automatically creating a meeting, consider whether it could be an email (or even video) first. If needed a meeting can be created afterwards.

In addition to this, there is value in knowing how to check in on employees properly, as it might be a case that a more personalized approach is more beneficial. Schedule a time with them, one that fits within their own schedule of work, and have a chat about what’s working, what isn’t, how everything’s going on their end, and what you both need from each other. Fostering an open and frank relationship might encourage them to be increasingly honest with you in the future, and while it might not always be what you want to hear, the truth can help you to act accordingly.

Set Realistic Goals

When you feel as though you’re falling behind your competitors, or even just where you think your business should be currently, you can set your targets too high to compensate for the gulf that’s emerging. However, this creates a self-perpetuating cycle where you’re constantly failing to meet your targets, becoming frustrated and disheartened at the lack of apparent progress, and failing to get yourself into a consistent, productive routine. Therefore, think about how you can set more realistic targets, with actionable steps that you can easily understand and achieve.

A lot of achieving this comes down to being as specific as possible. You don’t want to repeatedly set targets that you’re going to knock out within a few minutes, as then you might spend more time setting these goals than actually achieving them. However, at the same time, you don’t want to have these nebulous goals that don’t have any concrete steps leading up to them, as it gives you and your employees little to work with in terms of getting there.

It’s a process, and it might take some time to feel like this is getting you anywhere, but it can take your mind off the big picture and on actually committing to tasks that are helping you move forward.

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