Honing Your Entrepreneurial Skills: Productivity

Given that I recently moved into a new office and it’s the end of the year, I thought that now would be an ideal time to tune up my productivity as a small business owner. My enhancements fall into four categories, including built-in exercise, time-saving office equipment, efficiency apps, and streamlined processes.

Built-in Exercise

My holiday gift to myself this year was a treadmill desk. The desk allows me to easily get in 10,000 steps a day without having to schedule in a trip to the gym or even a walk around the neighborhood. Now, Alyson Shontell at Business Insider used a treadmill desk from LifeSpan for a whole day and said it negatively impacted her productivity because she was so exhausted. I’m not surprised. It’s all about moderation, so in 2015, I will use the desk during busywork periods (answering emails, submitting invoices, making administrative calls, etc.). I have a regular computer desk for periods of intense, focused work.

Time-Saving Office Equipment

You already know that I’m a spokesperson for Canon, and as such, the company sent me a new Canon Maxify printer designed specifically for small business owners. I don’t employ a full-time assistant, so printing and scanning tasks can be laborious – not to mention a time and productivity suck. The best thing about the Canon Maxify is its speed: in just a minute or so it churned out a 20-page client contract. The Maxify also allows me to send documents to print from any location in the cloud, so I can take care of my printing and scanning tasks while on the go.

Efficiency Apps

The iPhone App Store is always full of interesting finds, and this year I’m adding Dashlane and Gmail Canned Responses to my repertoire. Dashlane, which is free, automatically logs you onto websites so you never have to remember individual passwords. Its security seems pretty robust, as I’ve already received an alert that one of my passwords was potentially compromised. As for Gmail Canned Responses, I learned about this from CNET’s Nicole Cozma and don’t know how I lived without it for this long. The Canned responses feature lets you compose replies to common messages you receive and saves them for future use so that in just few clicks, you can insert one of your pre-written replies. I tend to get asked the same questions over and over, so this tool was invented for me!

In 2015, I’ll also continue to use my go-to efficiency apps of Dropbox (cloud-based storage), Doodle (online meeting coordinator), Evernote (note-taking and content-clipping), and If This Then That (social media coordination).

 

Streamlined Processes

 

As a small business owner, three major time management pitfalls are small-task procrastination, working on tasks outside my expertise, and managing my finances. For 2015, I’m implementing a few processes that I anticipate will double my productivity in these areas. First, I’ll increase my use of the “Under 10 Minutes rule.” The rule states that if a task arrives in my queue and it can be completed in less than 10 minutes, I take care of it right away. I’ll also use TaskRabbit, a tool that quickly locates experts on a variety of topics and can also provide administrative support in case, for example, I need someone to help me respond to media pitches. I also plan to expand my usage of Intuit’s Quickbooks, Quickbase, and Mint products in order to better keep track of the money coming in and the money coming out, as well as my client engagements and budgets.

Please check out the first and second posts in this series on business acumen and self-discipline, and stay tuned for the last one, which will include advice on enhancing your reliability.

Canon will be spotlighting several small business owners on its social media channels throughout the next several months, so be sure to leave a comment and share your thoughts on this post using the hashtag #MAXIFY in order to qualify. If you are a U.S.-based small business owner (1-9 employees) and have faced a unique business challenge in your first year on the job, let us know! We’d love to hear what line of work your small business falls within and what you feel is the most important takeaway from this post.

We’ll also be rewarding select small business owners with a prize pack including the Canon Maxify MB5320 printer as well as other essentials to help you run your business more efficiently. So don’t forget to leave a link to your website or social media pages that way we can see how well you’re marketing your business and get in touch!

Comments

[Karl Staib]

One of the greatest struggles I face as an entrepreneur is saying no. I believe in hustle and sticktoitiveness, but I think it's gotten me into trouble in the past. I run a passion project, full-time business, enjoy my family and try to balance all of them.

My goal in 2015 is to say no more so I can get more of the high impact work done that helps me grow as a person and a business owner.

I help people with work happiness over at http://workhappynow.com and I have to admit that I don't always take my own advice in the focus department. In 2015 my word will be focus.

[Robert De Los Santos]

Great post Alexandra! I am the owner of a party rental company called Sky High Party Rentals out of Houston, Texas. I’ve been following your blog, and as small business owner have found it useful. This year, I am also jumping on the 10,000 steps a day bandwagon. I find there is plenty of work I can do on a computer for my business with marketing and social media, but that there is also a whole lot more I can do physically by getting my hands dirty. This year I hope to spend 50% of my time in the office, and the other half with getting our processes and productivity up with my workers. Our company has been growing year after year and I also plan to get more workers involved who have shown leadership skills and give them bigger roles so that we can achieve stronger goals. Good luck with the new year!

[Alexandra Levit]

Karl, thanks for the comment! I have the same goal this year. In fact, I just said no for the first time. I still feel guilty as other people are STILL not picking up the slack, but why should I always be the one to do things? I will stay the course!

[Alexandra Levit]

Thank you, Robert! Congrats on your growth! Do you mean that you will spend 50% of your time "on the ground?" I think this is a great way to ensure to ensure that things are going in the right direction as you scale up.

[Fritz]

It is crazy how many of these things I need to be doing more of. We have 8 employees and sometimes it is like herding cats to get all of on the same page which is my over all vision for our company. The big picture hits home for me the most. We want to create a brand, a brand that company's want to be a part of. If we loose that big picture and just do client service day to day that looses the fun of our agency and makes us like everyone else. That and my addiction to craigslist and ebay sites, i need to block them..... side note, we don't even have a color printer cause we spend so much money on a "fast and efficient" black and white one that no one knows how to use. My employees would love it.

[Alexandra Levit]

Fritz, I'm addicted to Amazon and the process of thinking about what I need on there. I didn't even realize I was spending so much time on this until you brought up eBay and Craig's List. Thank you!

[Jamilla Yipp]

I am going to raise my prices a bit, so I don't have to take on as many clients, thus giving a better turn around rate. Also, finding ways to streamline my workflow in order to stay on track. Quickbooks is very needed for me right not, to start tracking my expenses.

[Mathijs de Jong]

A big part of my responsibilities is managing and delegating, as is true for many of us business owners. I've always liked to think that I'm pretty good at identifying and communicating tasks, giving people responsibility within projects, and outlining the overall strategic goals to all team members. However, I've noticed recently that I've not been not so good in following up after meetings/goals and strategic decisions that are made. I've observed a significant productivity loss for myself, but especially for that of my team members, by not having proper follow up processes in place within the company.

2015, but even the last weeks of 2014, will all be about improving my own managing skills in regards to proper follow ups. Are goals reached? Are people working together as they should after? Are people working on the goals everyone collectively agreed on? Is there further feedback from people on certain decisions made? This will be my main goal for 2015.

It's going to require a significant investment on my end to achieve this. It's hard for me to not focus the new opportunities but instead check back with everyone to make sure prior strategic goals are interpreted correctly and if all noses are still pointing in the same direction. With so many other things, follow ups often seem redundant, but I feel it's critical for my company to improve our overall productivity. As the CEO of the company, individual focused processes will yield only so much productivity gain. Processes that benefit everyone at the company, however, will yield a significantly higher production increase than I can ever achieve by myself.

My 2 cents :-)

[Alexandra Levit]

Mathijs, great ideas. I especially like the point about using the end of the year as a time to re-evaluate goals and workflow. Everything tends to slow down during this time, but it's actually a good time to focus more than ever. Thanks for reading!

[Alexandra Levit]

Jamilla, yes! I think sometimes as women business owners, we hesitate to raise our prices. And by the way, I'm doing the same in 2015 on advice from one of my mentors.