Cast your mind back over the last few work days. How much time did you spend on crucial business activities, such as marketing or planning?

Hmmm…we thought so.

That’s why we wanted to share some insights with you. Social Media distractions aside, we want to highlight the biggest timewasting activities in your business.

 

1. Emails: emails are a necessary evil, but they can take over. Without systems in place, employees spend time following up tasks, both internally and externally. Think of all the emails backwards and forwards confirming appointments, confirming to do’s, seeking approvals…it’s never ending!

How to fix this problem: use internal communications tools or use a workflow program to reduce manual actions.

 

2. Meetings: again, meetings are important to business operations, howeverwe can get lost in meetings about meetings. This takes time not only to have the meeting in the first place, but time to schedule the meeting, prepare for the meeting, follow up after the meeting…you see where we are going with this.

How to fix this problem: consider the usefulness of a meeting before calling it, and determine who really needs to be there. Schedule weekly catch ups with your team where you can discuss important topics in one go.

 

3. Important, but repetitive, tasks: if you don’t have good systems in place, or have good technical skills, repetitive tasks can be a massive time waster. Compiling reports from hundreds of spreadsheet rows, manually inputting data from documents – that type of thing can cost the company hours in wages, decreased morale and also can result in errors.

How to fix this problem: ensure your employees have adequate training in programs (such as excel) and ensure you have processes in place for manual data compilation.

 

Hopefully this has highlighted some areas you might be able to reduce time wasted in your business, so you can focus on working on it – rather than in it.